A Day to Remember...

...for lots of reasons. This being among the best:

A simmering rivalry bubbled over in a game for the ages 10 years ago.

On March 26, 1997, while the Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings were positioning themselves for the upcoming NHL playoffs, bad blood from the previous postseason boiled into unadulterated fury at Joe Louis Arena. The teams combined for nine fights, 11 goals, 39 penalties, 148 penalty minutes, one hat trick, one "turtle" and two Stanley Cup champion goalies duking it out in an overtime thriller.

[…]

In a 2004 poll on the Red Wings' Web site, fans overwhelmingly voted this ultra-memorable game their favorite in the team's recent history, ahead of overtime playoff thrillers and Stanley Cup-clinching victories.

Good choice, Hockeytown.

Read the whole thing, even if you’re not a hockey fan. The story is a great one, hockey or no, and there are links to videos of some of the memorable ...uh... altercations. If you are a hockey fan?

Priceless.

What a birthday present that was! I did manage to watch the game although I wasn’t in Detroit. This was back in the day when the NHL’s TV contract was with a viable network (read that as: ESPN).

Photo: Patrick Roy and Mike Vernon mix it up. What’s unusual is they’re both goalies. Rare, that. Photo credit: ESPN.