13 Year Anniversary Of The Brawl

Thirteen years ago today, 301 days after Claude Lemieux laid the infamous hit on Kris Draper, Darren McCarty sought out revenge and delivered it with a vengeance. In celebration of the 13th anniversary lets dust off the old brass knuckles and watch the best sports brawl and possibly the best sports moment of all time. There is so much going on during this brawl that you have to watch it over and over to catch everything. You can feel the rivalry in the air before it starts and when Igor gets popped in the head by Forsberg, the always calm and collected Professor decides enough is enough. This is literally the only fight I remember him ever getting in during his entire career with the Wings and it was a hell of a time to drop the gloves. Once Igor and Peter started rolling around on the ice, Darren took the opportunity to lay the fuckin wood to Lemieux's face. Claude hits the ice, turtles and gets pumped by Darren. Besides the initial hit, Darren's best move is when he gets Claude up against the boards and starts kneeing him in head repeatedly. As Patty Roy sees this happening he comes busting ass out to help only to be picked off by my favorite Red Wing of all time Brendan Shannahan. Shannie snipes Roy outta the air like a perigran falcon and then ends up going toe to toe in a heavyweight throw down with Adam Foote. Eventually Vernon gets his ass involved and even though he took a beat down he was able to slip a left that Roy leans into and busts him up pretty bad. They eventually help Lemieux off the ice as he gushes blood all over. In the most entertaining part of the whole ordeal, the linesman goes over to clean up the blood and sprays a bloody mess all over Kurt Maltby's skate at the 7:40 mark. Oh, and watching Marc Crawford scream to the refs at the 8:10 mark that they have no balls and are fuckin f*gg*** was definitely a highlight of mine. I just feel real bad Mickey Redmond had to miss the biggest brewhaha of the season and you know he still festers about that shit until this day.

I seriously get goosebumps from watching this shit. I'm sitting at work right now and almost in tears thinking about the emotion this solicited from the city of Detroit. I miss the days of the true blood rivalry. I just don't know if there will ever be anything like this again in the modern age of professional sports because of the pussification of America. But looking back I can say this was the absolute golden age of Redwing hockey for me. This team was impossible not to love and the Av's were impossible not to hate. We had the finesse of the Russian 5, the grit of the Grind Line, the leadership of Shannie and Yzerman, the hockey genius of Scotty Bowman, the geriatric precision of Larry Murphy, the woodchuck beard of Jamie Macoun, the beer league legs of Joey Kocur and the most lovable goaltending duo of Vernon and Ozzie. I've never been more emotionally attached to any specific team, championship, or footage than this clip and this year.

Here's a clip of Lemieux and McCarty shooting the shit. A lot more corgial after all these years.


Watch the three part special here...

http://watch.tsn.ca/off-the-record/off-the-record---march-18/#clip278021