So, I'm a week late.  I hadn't checked the reader submissions when I put up the Detroit fight last week and I completely forgot about the infamous Good Friday Brawl that took place between Quebec and Montreal during the 1984 Adams Division Finals (2nd round if you're newer to hockey).

While the Montreal and Quebec franchises were both favorites of Francophones in Canada, there was little else these two teams had in common.  The Canadiens are sports royalty.  The team is celebrating it's 100th season this year, and in that time, they've won 24 Stanley Cup Championships.  Think about that.  In the last century, the Cubs haven't won a single World Series, while the Canadiens have been winning Cups at a clip of one nearly every 4 years.  The team has featured such great stars as Maurice "Rocket" Richard, Jacques Plante (the first goalie sane enough to don a mask), Guy Lafluer, Bob Gainey and Patrick Roy.  The only reason Montreal isn't known as "Hockeytown" is that they probably think that the nickname is too stupid and cornball to use.  Detroit can have the nickname, Montreal doesn't need to advertise.

If the Canadiens are hockey royalty, the Nords were something else entirely.  Born in the WHA, the Nordiques were one of the 4 teams that managed to survive the war between the two leagues and merge into the NHL in 1979.  The Nords were not so much a professional sports franchise as a Quebec Separatist National Team.  Playing in the 2nd smallest North American city to host a pro sports franchise (Green Bay being the smallest), the Nordiques had a rabid local fanbase, but little outside appeal, as the city's media outlets both broadcast and print were almost all in French.  As opposed to the charmed life of the Canadiens, the Nords seemed perpetually snakebit, having their powerhouse WHA team dismantled upon entry to the NHL, floundering at the bottom of the standings for years, suffering through the holdout of career pain-in-the-ass Eric Lindros, building the team into a contender thanks to the subsequent trade of Lindros, and finally, the team winning the Stanley Cup in 1996.  Oh, did I mention that the team moved to Denver prior to the start of that season?  Yeah, that sucks.

Anyway, there was little love lost between the Habs and Nords during the time they shared a province.  Tonight's fight shows just how intense that rivalry would become.  The fight began at the end of the 2nd period, and raged out of control after Quebec's Louis Sleigher knocked out Jean Hammel of the Canadiens with a sucker punch.  The fight then picks up again at the beginning of the 3rd period, when for some reason all the players who were ejected at the end of the 2nd period return to the ice anyway and pick up where they left off.  At some point, ex-Blackhawks Chris Chelios and Michel Goulet are involved, and brothers Mark and Dale Hunter nearly come to blows.  Also prominent in the mêlée is Nords backup goalie Clint Malarchuk, who would later go on to infamy when he nearly died on the ice in Buffalo, after his throat was slit by an errant skate blade.




Thanks to the guys at Second City Hockey, one of whom sent this link to me.