Sep 10
22
If you thought the United States and the Soviet Union hated each other during the Cold War…wait until you see this.
I’ve lived on this planet for 29 years (almost 30…yikes!), I played hockey growing up (I still see the ice from time to time), I’ve watched the game my entire life, and somehow I’ve never seen this video. I don’t know how I missed it, but I’m so glad that I found it (thanks to my co-worker Joe Fehlig).
This hockey fight…forget that…hockey brawl is so famous it even has a name, the ”Punch-Up in Piestany”. Sports writer Gare Joyce was so impressed, he wrote a book about the melee.
Here’s a little background for you. The brawl took place during the 1987 World Junior Hockey Championships in Piestany, Czechoslovakia. With Canada leading 4-2 in the second period, Soviet player Pavel Kostichkin slashed Canadian Theoren Fleury. It doesn’t look like much in the replay, but the penalty sparked a 20 minute bench-clearing brawl. It got so bad they turned off the lights in the arena to stop the fighting (at the 3:20 mark)…it didn’t work:
As a result, the two teams were banned for the rest of the tournament. The Soviet Union was already eliminated from medal contention, but the Canadians were still in the mix for the gold, silver, or bronze. They didn’t see the ice again. Finland, Czechoslovakia, and Sweden medaled instead.
I did some research into the Canadian and Soviet Union teams that year…
Every single player on the Canadian team played in the National Hockey League except for one, starting goalie Shawn Simpson. Of the guys who played in the NHL only Luke Richardson (238), Fleury (216), and Brendan Shanahan (211) ever recorded more than 200 penalty minutes in a season. Everett Sanipass (164), Steve Chiasson (149), Mike Keane (119), and Chris Joseph (108) ever registered more than 100 PIMs in a year. That means fighting was out of the ordinary for most of these guys. Pierre Turgeon, who also played for Canada in ’87, was involved in another infamous play while in the NHL. I guess he was just always in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Soviet team as a whole didn’t have as much professional success. Sergei Fedorov, Alexander Mogilny, Vladimir Malakhov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Alexander Kerch, Valeri Zelepukin, Evgeny Davydov are the only guys who played in the NHL. Davydov is credited as the first player on either team to leave the bench during the ’87 brawl (not really the best way to be remembered).
Not one player from either team is still actively playing in North America (Federov still plays overseas), but the National Hockey League rolls on without them. The regular season gets started in a couple of weeks. I, for one (maybe the only one), am really excited for the games to begin.
Let me know what you think of this video! You can leave a comment below, find me on Twitter @lewissports, connect with me on Facebook, or email me at tim@timlewissports.com.
One more thing…if you love hockey fights this website is for you. And, here are a couple more hockey fights that you might enjoy: Video 1 | Video 2
