Of Minor Interest...

... and only for hockey fans, but most especially Red Wings fans.  Ryan Dixon had an article in yesterday's Hockey News (Top Shelf: Shanny recalls one distinct donnybrook) that was (a) pretty danged good and (b) rang a bell for me, loud and clear.  Here are the bell-ringing bits:

...the other built on the sport’s best-ever rivalries.

The ferocious late-‘90s feud between the Detroit Red Wings and Colorado Avalanche is certainly one of those.

Rivalries are most naturally born out of geography or a long, shared history of battles. But the clash between Detroit and Colorado was bloody competition in its purest form because it had nothing to do with proximity or the past – heck, the Avs were in their first year in Denver when the teams met for the West final in 1996.

Unfortunately, the bickering boiled over in that series only after Kris Draper was the victim of an incredibly cheap hit by Claude Lemieux.

Colorado won that series in six games, then took the Cup, leaving Detroit fans to ponder another failed season and a championship drought that stretched back to 1955.

The Wings began the next season by adding Brendan Shanahan. They finished it by winning the first of back-to-back titles, beating out the Avs in the playoffs after beating them down in the famous Joe Louis Arena March mash-up that many – including Shanny – believe provided a big thrust in the Wings’ Cup push.


[...]


To wit: After playing three gloves-on games to start the year, the Wings opted to extract their revenge during a brawl that included Shanahan and Patrick Roy doing their best Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon impression before Roy and Mike Vernon got down to business.

If you chase the "Crouching Tiger" link above you'll be treated to one of hockey's BEST on-ice brawls evah... in its entirety.  I've written about "Fight Night at The Joe" before, most recently when Darren McCarty retired late last year.  I watched that game, which is second only to Game Four of the 1997 Stanley Cup Final in my personal pantheon of great hockey games (this year's Olympic Final would be third-best), wherein the Wings won their first Cup in 42 years (It got really drunk out that night).  And McCarty got the winner in that one (I posted video of that beauteous goal in the McCarty retirement post, above).  But the best part about Fight Night at The Joe?  It was on my birthday.

The BEST birthday present, evah.  And I'm NOT kidding.