Detroit Red Wings–Colorado Avalanche brawl
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| Date | March 26, 1997 | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Arena | Joe Louis Arena | ||||||||||||||||||
| City |
Detroit, Michigan,  United States
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| Attendance | 19,983 | ||||||||||||||||||
The Avalanche–Red Wings brawl was a large-scale on-ice melee that occurred March 26, 1997, at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan, United States, between two National Hockey League rivals, the Colorado Avalanche and Detroit Red Wings. The brawl, which has been nicknamed Bloody Wednesday, Fight Night at the Joe and Brawl in Hockeytown, stemmed from a previous on-ice incident between the two teams during the 1996 Western Conference Finals.
In Game 6 of the 1996 Western Conference Finals, Avalanche right winger Claude Lemieux, checked Red Wings center Kris Draper from behind, driving Draper's face into the boards.
The hit sent Draper out of the game and into the hospital with a broken jaw, shattered cheek and orbital bone, which required reconstructive surgery involving his jaw being wired shut and numerous stitches. The Avalanche would upset the Red Wings in six games, eventually winning the Stanley Cup. After the traditional handshakes that take place after a playoff series, former Red Wings winger Dino Ciccarelli said of Lemieux, "I can't believe I shook this guy's friggin' hand after the game; that pisses me right off."
In the next regular season, although the two teams had played each other three times without incident, this fourth meeting on the night of March 26 was different, with nine fights in the game. As tensions mounted early in the first period, defencemen Brent Severyn (Avalanche) and Jamie Pushor (Red Wings) fought at 4:45 of the first period, followed by a fight between forwards Kirk Maltby (Red Wings) and René Corbet (Avalanche) at 10:14.
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