[transplant99]

Just an excellent reminiscing by Kevin Kurz of the Athletic.

Game 6 Wales CF, Flyers/Canadiens

All hell breaks loose before the game...no officials on the ice to stop it. Claude Lemieux right in the middle of it all of course. Ed Hospodar was suspended for the entirety of the rest of the playoffs.

Dave Brown and Chris Nilan scrapped for what felt like 15 minutes.

Pure and utter chaos.

A glance at the box score of Game 6 of the Wales Conference finals on May 14, 1987, when Philadelphia advanced to the Stanley Cup Final with a 4-3 win over Montreal, doesn’t reveal anything extraordinary. Rick Tocchet’s third-period goal broke a 3-3 tie, and eventual Conn Smythe-winning goalie Ron Hextall made 29 saves to help the Flyers advance.

What happened before the game, though, has resonated for more than three decades.

“The National Hockey League sank to a new low last night, and that’s an (extreme) low indeed,” wrote Philadelphia Inquirer sports editor Frank Dolson. “Those were major hockey league players out there making a mockery of their sport.”

Don Cherry, the acerbic Canadian broadcaster, said at the time: “I don’t mind the odd brawl, but I didn’t like that.”

Claude Lemieux, Canadiens forward: Shayne Corson and I liked to stay on the ice late and have a long warmup, and I was always the last guy to get off. It was kind of a superstition thing — flip a puck in the empty net. And that was our routine.

Mark Howe, Flyers defenseman: The whole thing started because of superstition.

Lemieux: This thing had picked up and became I guess somewhat important where (Canadiens captain) Bob Gainey had said to me and Corson, “You guys, don’t mess around out there. Just come off the ice and once they leave, you can go about your superstition.” Something like that. And so we decided we were going to hide behind the curtain, which is what we did. We saw them leave and we asked the security guard, “Are they gone?” And he’s like, “Yeah.”

Dave Poulin, Flyers captain: They were hiding like little kids behind their curtain, so our guys hid like little kids behind our curtain, and they went out to meet them.

Lemieux: (Hospodar) was a tough guy, but I flipped him over and I’m on top of him like, “What are you doing?” And then Chico was like, “What’s going on? What are you guys doing?” And I’m like, “What are you guys doing?” Then it was too late, and I saw, oh my gosh, all the players are coming on the ice, and it was over.

Nilan: (Flyers defenseman Kjell) Samuelsson is kind of looking at me. I know he’s a big guy, it’s not like I was scared of Kjell Samuelsson because he was big. That didn’t bother me at all. Am I going to waste my time fighting this guy, who doesn’t fight? I knew this wasn’t it. Sure enough, both dressing rooms started trickling out, and then I saw big Brownie obviously come out with no jersey on. And, OK, here we go.

Morganti: Dave Brown was the king. He was the best fighter I ever saw.

Brown: I always took my jersey off to cool off after warmups or in between periods. I had it off, and I thought, why should I put it back on if we’re going back out there to fight? I just put my elbow pads on, if I fall down. We went to look for whoever we had to match up with, and I knew Nilan was my guy, because he was their tough guy, so I went and looked for him.

Nilan: We went at it. Then we grabbed, and then we’d go again. At one time we’re swinging away, and I went to my knees and got back up, and then we both rested again. He was leaning on my shoulder, he had his head in behind my head, by my ear. And he goes, “Have you had enough?” And I said “Nope,” and I just ####ing hauled off and threw another shot, and off we went again.

Brown: I think that started leading to where we are now. It was another factor that (reduced) fighting. Before that, we used to brawl probably three or four times a year. I think they knew at some point that they were going to have to stop the brawls if they were going to be able to show this on national TV. They didn’t want to have that kind of reputation, because they didn’t think they could grow the game, probably — and they’re probably right.

https://theathletic.com/2618125/2021...rce=dailyemail