Hooray for YouTube! Why? Because of it, I found one of the most exciting moments in sports history that I've ever seen.
The best sport that Australia never really takes part in (due to the inherent lack of water, let alone ice!) is ice hockey. Nonetheless, if you're lucky to have cable tv, it's one of the best games to ever watch because it's probably the fastest-paced sport that exists, and fights are legal! The following is a brawl that happened ten years ago. Things you need to know before you watch it:
- Fights are, contrary to belief, rare.
- If a fight breaks out it's 99% of the time just a one-on-one fight. And most of the time, the fights are clumsy ie. the two people wrestle and grapple each other to the ground/ice as opposed to full-on face punches... After all, taking a close-fisted swipe to the head of another guy wearing a helmet...that'd hurt you more than him!
- Goalies almost NEVER fight.
- The Detroit Red Wings (the guys in the white and red uniform, and the team which I go for) and the Colorado Avalache built a HUGE rivalry over the late 90s.
- One year before this brawl, a Detroit player was taken down with a cheap shot by a Colorado player. It caused a broken jaw and orbital bone, and forced the Detroit player out for about a year. The cheap Colorado player in question (Lemieux) is the one that gets blindsided in the video by a different Detroit player (McCarty). If you watch all the replays you'll realise that McCarty uses the first fight that breaks out as a cheap excuse to go after his man Lemieux. Oh how revenge is sweet, especially when it's one year overdue!
Anyways, the video is after this post. The quality is a bit dodgy but it'll do.
The best bit is when the Colorado goalie skates out to rescue Lemieux but he himself is intercepted at full-speed by another Detroit player...watch the replay of it. The game itself turned out to be the definition of irony. The three main Detroit players fighting (with the exception of the goalie) were McCarty, Shanahan and Larionov....
The game went into overtime and was eventually won by Detroit. The scorer? McCarty. The assists to the goal? Shanahan and Larionov
