Excerpt:
What really happened when the lights went out in Piestany?
They call it “the Punch-Up in Piestany,” a brawl in Czechoslovakia between bitter historical rivals that got so out of control that officials turned the lights out in hopes that the fighting would eventually end. And these were kids competing in the World Junior Championship in 1987. One guy was in the middle of it all, and he wound up to be a teammate in Detroit with a guy from the other side who also was in the middle of it all – and made a bit of a name for himself with a headbutt that rearranged another guy’s face. You shouldn’t be surprised.
Brendan Shanahan remembers:
I was 17, and we were at the World Juniors. Interestingly, the format back then was round robin, so they took the two best teams from the previous year and they put them in the last game of the tournament. Canada was actually fighting for gold medal, and we had to win the game, I think by three or four goals maybe. And the Russian team, at the time they were USSR, the Soviet Union, they had a horrible tournament. They were a frustrated group. I think they were in fifth or sixth, so they were just playing it out.
We didn’t know this at the time, but I found out later that they were embarrassed and they were being ridiculed by their coach. They sort of feared repercussions when they went back. They weren’t being fed after games. It was a combustible moment. So what started out as some pushing and shoving on the ice turned into a couple of guys fighting, which turned into three or four guys fighting, and then it turned into a five-on-five brawl, which was unheard of at the time in international hockey.
It’s funny, you know, players and people right now don’t see bench-clearing brawls in hockey, but they did exist back then for us. Most of us were playing major or junior hockey. By then I had already been in three of them. There was a bit of a code as to how these things occurred. The rule was you didn’t go over the boards first, but if one team left the bench they were in trouble and then you left the bench to make sure the numbers were even. The team that left the bench second or the individuals that left the bench second were exonerated. So during this five-on-five, all of a sudden, there was a fight down to our left and we were all watching the fight, somewhat in disbelief. But as 16, 17, 18-year old kids, we were pretty excited. The Russian bench was to our right and two Russian players went by us to join the fight, making it seven on five.
Burt Templeton was our head coach, and in that moment he knew what we were going to do, and he realized that the repercussions would be different… I remember thinking that just I was just going, and Luke Richardson thought just he was just going, and probably a lot of our guys just though, OK, we’ll just send out a couple of guys to even the numbers out. But as it turned out, we all went, and they all went, the Russians. And it was a wild and dirty fight.
As it turned out, we had some fighters on the Canadian team, some guys that were used to it. But we also had some guys like Pierre Turgeon and Glen Wesley who were not fighters. And you know when you had a bench clearing brawl and your team went, everyone went, but there always was two or three guys on each team that would just grab on to each other, as non-fighters, and just hold on and kind of talk and admire what was going on.
But the Russians, they just assumed everyone goes, everyone fights, so we had some guys on our team that got beaten up pretty badly by some real strong guys. We didn't know who we were dealing with. You didn’t know if you were paired up with Alexander Mogilny or if you were paired up with Vladimir Konstantinov, so it was a scary situation. It was a wild, wild brawl, and they eventually had to turn the lights out.
I thought at the time that they’re turning the lights off because they want this to end. To me it was a signal to stop. ‘Let’s just turn the lights out for a second here. . .’ But I’ve got to tell you: Some things got done when the lights were out, and that was what ended the fight. When the lights came back on there was a clear winner and there was a clear loser in each matchup, and that did sort of end things.
The referees had left the ice. It was something. I don’t know that anybody could be prepared for something like that, let alone a bunch of kids. Burt Templeton, our coach, had torn his sport coat in two, I guess reaching to grab players as they were spilling over the boards.
I never saw the head-butt. . .
We all finally went into the dressing room, and some of our guys are pretty banged up. Greg Hawgood’s nose is somewhere over here, and he said that one of the Russian players hit him with a head-butt. It wasn’t until I went home and we watched the video that we really saw how massive this fight was. Patrick Roy had a younger brother on the team, Stefan Roy, and he had a perfect circle on his forehead. I remember in the dressing room he was screaming, like, ‘Where were you guys?’ Then I watch the video afterwards and there were two guys on him beating him up, and one of them kicked him right in the head.
And I also saw the fight that Hawgood was in with Konstantinov. But the part of the story that Hawgood left out was when they weren’t punching anymore, Konstantinov went to put his sweater back on the proper way. And when he did that, Hawgood sucker-punched Vladdie – not knowing then that Vladdie’s nickname would someday be ‘The Impaler.’ At that moment, Vladdie head-butted him right in the face. Just dropped him to the ice – with a broken nose.
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What really happened when the lights went out in Piestany?
They call it “the Punch-Up in Piestany,” a brawl in Czechoslovakia between bitter historical rivals that got so out of control that officials turned the lights out in hopes that the fighting would eventually end. And these were kids competing in the World Junior Championship in 1987. One guy was in the middle of it all, and he wound up to be a teammate in Detroit with a guy from the other side who also was in the middle of it all – and made a bit of a name for himself with a headbutt that rearranged another guy’s face. You shouldn’t be surprised.
Brendan Shanahan remembers:
I was 17, and we were at the World Juniors. Interestingly, the format back then was round robin, so they took the two best teams from the previous year and they put them in the last game of the tournament. Canada was actually fighting for gold medal, and we had to win the game, I think by three or four goals maybe. And the Russian team, at the time they were USSR, the Soviet Union, they had a horrible tournament. They were a frustrated group. I think they were in fifth or sixth, so they were just playing it out.
We didn’t know this at the time, but I found out later that they were embarrassed and they were being ridiculed by their coach. They sort of feared repercussions when they went back. They weren’t being fed after games. It was a combustible moment. So what started out as some pushing and shoving on the ice turned into a couple of guys fighting, which turned into three or four guys fighting, and then it turned into a five-on-five brawl, which was unheard of at the time in international hockey.
It’s funny, you know, players and people right now don’t see bench-clearing brawls in hockey, but they did exist back then for us. Most of us were playing major or junior hockey. By then I had already been in three of them. There was a bit of a code as to how these things occurred. The rule was you didn’t go over the boards first, but if one team left the bench they were in trouble and then you left the bench to make sure the numbers were even. The team that left the bench second or the individuals that left the bench second were exonerated. So during this five-on-five, all of a sudden, there was a fight down to our left and we were all watching the fight, somewhat in disbelief. But as 16, 17, 18-year old kids, we were pretty excited. The Russian bench was to our right and two Russian players went by us to join the fight, making it seven on five.
Burt Templeton was our head coach, and in that moment he knew what we were going to do, and he realized that the repercussions would be different… I remember thinking that just I was just going, and Luke Richardson thought just he was just going, and probably a lot of our guys just though, OK, we’ll just send out a couple of guys to even the numbers out. But as it turned out, we all went, and they all went, the Russians. And it was a wild and dirty fight.
As it turned out, we had some fighters on the Canadian team, some guys that were used to it. But we also had some guys like Pierre Turgeon and Glen Wesley who were not fighters. And you know when you had a bench clearing brawl and your team went, everyone went, but there always was two or three guys on each team that would just grab on to each other, as non-fighters, and just hold on and kind of talk and admire what was going on.
But the Russians, they just assumed everyone goes, everyone fights, so we had some guys on our team that got beaten up pretty badly by some real strong guys. We didn't know who we were dealing with. You didn’t know if you were paired up with Alexander Mogilny or if you were paired up with Vladimir Konstantinov, so it was a scary situation. It was a wild, wild brawl, and they eventually had to turn the lights out.
I thought at the time that they’re turning the lights off because they want this to end. To me it was a signal to stop. ‘Let’s just turn the lights out for a second here. . .’ But I’ve got to tell you: Some things got done when the lights were out, and that was what ended the fight. When the lights came back on there was a clear winner and there was a clear loser in each matchup, and that did sort of end things.
The referees had left the ice. It was something. I don’t know that anybody could be prepared for something like that, let alone a bunch of kids. Burt Templeton, our coach, had torn his sport coat in two, I guess reaching to grab players as they were spilling over the boards.
I never saw the head-butt. . .
We all finally went into the dressing room, and some of our guys are pretty banged up. Greg Hawgood’s nose is somewhere over here, and he said that one of the Russian players hit him with a head-butt. It wasn’t until I went home and we watched the video that we really saw how massive this fight was. Patrick Roy had a younger brother on the team, Stefan Roy, and he had a perfect circle on his forehead. I remember in the dressing room he was screaming, like, ‘Where were you guys?’ Then I watch the video afterwards and there were two guys on him beating him up, and one of them kicked him right in the head.
And I also saw the fight that Hawgood was in with Konstantinov. But the part of the story that Hawgood left out was when they weren’t punching anymore, Konstantinov went to put his sweater back on the proper way. And when he did that, Hawgood sucker-punched Vladdie – not knowing then that Vladdie’s nickname would someday be ‘The Impaler.’ At that moment, Vladdie head-butted him right in the face. Just dropped him to the ice – with a broken nose.
Click here to order the book
