A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy! A right by Roy!
Probably not the best, but one of the funniest, good ol time 80s hockey, Oilers-Penguins, Gretzky's first trip to the Igloo turns into a full on brawl. Glen Sather loses it and tries to attack some fans in the crowd.
The funniest part the camera cuts to the crowd at one point and there's a traumatized lady who starts crying
imagine having not one, but two bench clearing brawls in the same playoff game - game 6, no less - with features such as brother fighting each other, a career being ended, the whole quebec nationalist backdrop, bruce hood giving up and retiring as nhl referee after the season ended because of it, and having bob cole on hand to call all the action:
two more good ones that really show how the flyers got their broad street bully reputation are these vids of flyers-leafs 75 and flyers-rangers 78...i've never seen one team get beat down and demoralized as badly as the flyers pound the rangers in this one, and similarly borje salming deserves a medal for not quitting hockey after getting eviscerated by mel bridgman in the vid below
as a sidenote, after a thorough viewing of 70s and 80s bench clearing brawls on youtube, i think mel bridgman has to be the biggest ****-disturber in nhl history...guy was always the first one on the ice to start the bench clearers and could handle himself pretty well in them
imagine having not one, but two bench clearing brawls in the same playoff game - game 6, no less - with features such as brother fighting each other, a career being ended, the whole quebec nationalist backdrop, bruce hood giving up and retiring as nhl referee after the season ended because of it, and having bob cole on hand to call all the action:
Bonus:Forsberg and Larionov 'fight' (More like Larionov steer wrestles Forsberg while the refs franctically try to make sure 160 pound Igor doesn't get pulverized)
Bonus:Forsberg and Larionov 'fight' (More like Larionov steer wrestles Forsberg while the refs franctically try to make sure 160 pound Igor doesn't get pulverized)
There was something about that Detroit/Colorado fight that had epic proportions. McCarty on Lemieux, Vernon on Roy, Larionov on Forsberg and Shanahan on Foote all seemed so symbolic.
There are so many little moments in that sequence where you can literally see the tide of that rivalry turning. Forsberg pushes the pacifist Larionov to the ice and then gives him an extra shot in the side of the head... Larionov finally has enough and not only charges the much bigger and stronger Forsberg, but bloodies him. McCarty lays down justice on Lemieux, who turtles and allows himself to be bloodied against the dashers in a gruesome reminder of what he did to Draper.
But probably the best is that slow-mo shot of the Vernon/Roy fight. Roy has always been a bully, and 1997 was the height of his reign over the league. Vernon gave up 4 inches and 50 pounds, but didn't hesitate to stand in and throw. There's a slow-mo sequence where Roy clocks Vernon hard with a right to the forehead, and it looks like he's going to take Vernon behind the woodshed... Vernon jumps back up with a left that buckles Roy's knees and opens up a gash on his face. Something about that moment, it was just a microcosm of events that played out over years between those teams.
Start this vid at 2:40 and you get it all in one sequence of replays:
I remember watching that at the time and I just couldn't believe what I was seeing... it was like Hollywood. Watched it probably 100 times since and it never gets old. My god was that ever a great rivalry.
