GDT: Why do many Avs fans embrace the Wings rivalry?

[TequilaBay]

As a younger fan of the Avs who wasn't even born yet when the Brawl in Hockeytown happened, and was only in preschool when Patrick Roy's Statue of Liberty save took place, obviously I'm not going to have the same emotional attachment to the Avs-Wings rivalry of the late '90s and early '00s as older fans will. But when looking at it from an objective standpoint, I do find it kind of baffling how many Avs fans embrace this past rivalry with the Wings, and how many want our team to meet the Wings in the Cup Final in the near future.

First of all, that rivalry had little to nothing to do with our cup wins in 1996 and 2001.
1996 was the first playoff meeting between the Avs and Wings, but at that time, the two teams were merely playoff competitors rather than rivals, not much different than the Avs with the Nucks or Hawks. The hit from Claude Lemieux that started the rivalry didn't take place until the tail end of that series, and even then, it wasn't until 1997 with the Brawl of Hockeytown, well after the 1996 cup win, that the animosity truly boiled into the rivalry it's remembered as today.
As for 2001, the Avs and Wings didn't even meet at all that year, the Kings bounced the Wings the first round that year.

As for the playoff meetings that took place after the Brawl in Hockeytown, when the two teams were actually rivals, either the Wings won and went on to win the cup, or the Avs won only to get bounced by the Stars in the next round. As painful as it is to admit, the Avs lost the rivalry with the Wings. That's just a fact, better to admit and accept it than pretending that rivalry was something it was not. The Avs-Wings rivalry was not something to be proud of on our side. At the very least, we should be glad that we did better in our rivalry with them than the Nucks did in their rivalry with the Hawks, or the Flames did in their rivalry with the Oilers, but we shouldn't treat the rivalry as an accomplishment, because it was not.

Now that the Avs have just won the 2022 cup without the Wings being anywhere in the playoff picture, now our franchise can have an identity that the Wings aren't apart of. We're no longer in another teams shadow, but instead, we're casting other teams in our own shadow. Now we actually have rivalries close to home. We can compete for market territory in Utah with the Knights, in New Mexico with the Stars, in Kansas with the Blues, and in Nebraska with the Wild. We have actual geographic rivalries now, and we have the upper hand in all four of those rivalries due to having more cups than those teams.

I also don't want the Avs to meet the Wings in the Final, and honestly don't want us to meet them in the playoffs again. Even if we win, but especially if we lose, it will only reinforce our identity as being defined by a rivalry with the Wings, and nothing more. Not to mention, even once the Wings rebuild is over, their team structure is most likely not going to be like ours. There's much more interesting Cup Final opponents I'd like to see our team against, such as the Leafs with how similar their team structure is to ours, or the Pens to give us MacKinnon VS Crosby, or the Canes as a nod to being Nordiques VS Whalers.

But anyways, that's just my two cents in the pool.

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[flyfysher]

The answer is a lot of us lived that rivalry. It’s not like yesteryear anymore but the Wings are among the teams that I still actively dislike although not irrationally so. Plus being SC champs now and with Helm contributing, it’s just not the same anymore. Wings are doing a nice job of rebuilding.

And IDGAF who we (the Avs) meet in the POs cuz we’ll stomp ‘em all.

 

[Gumballhead]

As a younger fan of the Avs who wasn't even born yet when the Brawl in Hockeytown happened, and was only in preschool when Patrick Roy's Statue of Liberty save took place, obviously I'm not going to have the same emotional attachment to the Avs-Wings rivalry of the late '90s and early '00s as older fans will. But when looking at it from an objective standpoint, I do find it kind of baffling how many Avs fans embrace this past rivalry with the Wings, and how many want our team to meet the Wings in the Cup Final in the near future.

First of all, that rivalry had little to nothing to do with our cup wins in 1996 and 2001.
1996 was the first playoff meeting between the Avs and Wings, but at that time, the two teams were merely playoff competitors rather than rivals, not much different than the Avs with the Nucks or Hawks. The hit from Claude Lemieux that started the rivalry didn't take place until the tail end of that series, and even then, it wasn't until 1997 with the Brawl of Hockeytown, well after the 1996 cup win, that the animosity truly boiled into the rivalry it's remembered as today.
As for 2001, the Avs and Wings didn't even meet at all that year, the Kings bounced the Wings the first round that year.

As for the playoff meetings that took place after the Brawl in Hockeytown, when the two teams were actually rivals, either the Wings won and went on to win the cup, or the Avs won only to get bounced by the Stars in the next round. As painful as it is to admit, the Avs lost the rivalry with the Wings. That's just a fact, better to admit and accept it than pretending that rivalry was something it was not. The Avs-Wings rivalry was not something to be proud of on our side. At the very least, we should be glad that we did better in our rivalry with them than the Nucks did in their rivalry with the Hawks, or the Flames did in their rivalry with the Oilers, but we shouldn't treat the rivalry as an accomplishment, because it was not.

Now that the Avs have just won the 2022 cup without the Wings being anywhere in the playoff picture, now our franchise can have an identity that the Wings aren't apart of. We're no longer in another teams shadow, but instead, we're casting other teams in our own shadow. Now we actually have rivalries close to home. We can compete for market territory in Utah with the Knights, in New Mexico with the Stars, in Kansas with the Blues, and in Nebraska with the Wild. We have actual geographic rivalries now, and we have the upper hand in all four of those rivalries due to having more cups than those teams.

I also don't want the Avs to meet the Wings in the Final, and honestly don't want us to meet them in the playoffs again. Even if we win, but especially if we lose, it will only reinforce our identity as being defined by a rivalry with the Wings, and nothing more. Not to mention, even once the Wings rebuild is over, their team structure is most likely not going to be like ours. There's much more interesting Cup Final opponents I'd like to see our team against, such as the Leafs with how similar their team structure is to ours, or the Pens to give us MacKinnon VS Crosby, or the Canes as a nod to being Nordiques VS Whalers.

But anyways, that's just my two cents in the pool.

To your point about the '96 playoffs, it was the first year the team was in Colorado, and the franchise was moved from the East to the West. As the Nordiques, they could only have met the Wings in the post season in the Finals. The shortened '95 season found the Nords and the Wings as the top teams in their respective conferences, so they were both already very good teams and once they started to play each other regularly, the seeds of a rivalry grew fairly quickly. It's not a classic all time rivalry like Sox-Yankees or Giants-Dodgers, but while it was happening it burned as brightly.

 

[McMetal]

I was a wee lad in 1995, but I do remember things getting chippy between the Avs and Wings long before the Claude hit. IIRC, the first regular season game that year was Avs-Wings, and things just piled on from there until they crescendoed the year after with the brawl in Detroit.

 

[Foppa2118]

I never considered the Avs identity tied to the Wings or that they lived in their shadow. They had a very special identity of their own, especially after winning the Cup for Bourque.

Maybe if they never won their identity would be tied to the Wings, but they had a hell of a story on their own, and they got the better of the Wings in their playoff matchups during the rivalry.

Roy beat Brodeur in the Finals, Joe handed the Cup to Ray for the best Cup handoff of all time, Joe won a Hart trophy, Forsberg won a Hart and an Art Ross, Hejduk won the Maurice Richard, Roy became the winningest goaltender of all time (at the time), and in a 9 year span they won 9 division titles, went to the conference final 6 times, and won 2 Cups.

They were the two best teams in the NHL for about 7 years, the teams and fans hated each other, and they had one of the best rivalries in sports history let alone in the NHL, where every game something crazy would happen.

Would be boring not to embrace that rivalry. What more can you ask for as a sports fan?

 

[UncleRisto]

I have older brothers.

 

[5280]

As a younger fan of the Avs who wasn't even born yet when the Brawl in Hockeytown happened, and was only in preschool when Patrick Roy's Statue of Liberty save took place, obviously I'm not going to have the same emotional attachment to the Avs-Wings rivalry of the late '90s and early '00s as older fans will. But when looking at it from an objective standpoint, I do find it kind of baffling how many Avs fans embrace this past rivalry with the Wings, and how many want our team to meet the Wings in the Cup Final in the near future.

First of all, that rivalry had little to nothing to do with our cup wins in 1996 and 2001.
1996 was the first playoff meeting between the Avs and Wings, but at that time, the two teams were merely playoff competitors rather than rivals, not much different than the Avs with the Nucks or Hawks. The hit from Claude Lemieux that started the rivalry didn't take place until the tail end of that series, and even then, it wasn't until 1997 with the Brawl of Hockeytown, well after the 1996 cup win, that the animosity truly boiled into the rivalry it's remembered as today.
As for 2001, the Avs and Wings didn't even meet at all that year, the Kings bounced the Wings the first round that year.

As for the playoff meetings that took place after the Brawl in Hockeytown, when the two teams were actually rivals, either the Wings won and went on to win the cup, or the Avs won only to get bounced by the Stars in the next round. As painful as it is to admit, the Avs lost the rivalry with the Wings. That's just a fact, better to admit and accept it than pretending that rivalry was something it was not. The Avs-Wings rivalry was not something to be proud of on our side. At the very least, we should be glad that we did better in our rivalry with them than the Nucks did in their rivalry with the Hawks, or the Flames did in their rivalry with the Oilers, but we shouldn't treat the rivalry as an accomplishment, because it was not.

Now that the Avs have just won the 2022 cup without the Wings being anywhere in the playoff picture, now our franchise can have an identity that the Wings aren't apart of. We're no longer in another teams shadow, but instead, we're casting other teams in our own shadow. Now we actually have rivalries close to home. We can compete for market territory in Utah with the Knights, in New Mexico with the Stars, in Kansas with the Blues, and in Nebraska with the Wild. We have actual geographic rivalries now, and we have the upper hand in all four of those rivalries due to having more cups than those teams.

I also don't want the Avs to meet the Wings in the Final, and honestly don't want us to meet them in the playoffs again. Even if we win, but especially if we lose, it will only reinforce our identity as being defined by a rivalry with the Wings, and nothing more. Not to mention, even once the Wings rebuild is over, their team structure is most likely not going to be like ours. There's much more interesting Cup Final opponents I'd like to see our team against, such as the Leafs with how similar their team structure is to ours, or the Pens to give us MacKinnon VS Crosby, or the Canes as a nod to being Nordiques VS Whalers.

But anyways, that's just my two cents in the pool.

I don’t agree with your second paragraph. I don’t feel we “lost” the rivalry. Detroit did win more cups but we beat them in playoff series during that time. If not for the Patrick Roy “Statue of Liberty” play who knows about the cups. Our problem was that we couldn’t beat Hitchcock and the Dallas Stars in the postseason for some reason.

Also, why wouldn’t having what people consider to be the best modern day to overall rivalry in hockey history be an accomplishment? These were the two premier teams in the NHL for years. This was before the salary cap and certain teams could just load up on good players almost at will. We both had the best teams and many of the best players in the world at that time.

The games between Detroit and Colorado were must see TV for me and many others back in the day. I would circle regular season games on my calendar and watch every single one. It was beyond exciting. I feel lucky to have been old enough and a huge fan of hockey at that time so I could be engaged and enjoy every single minute of it.

There isn’t much of a rivalry at the moment and won’t be again unless we meet them in the finals. I have a general disdain for them, but I feel that way about quite a few teams, it seems to rotate from year to year. Who knows what might happen, though? Hopefully we will still be good when Detroit rebuilds and we can see a team with Sakic’s fingerprints all over it play a Yzerman team in the finals. We just kind of saw that with these finals, but to me it would be fun to see it with Colorado and Detroit again.

I will say, though, it is nice to win something again and not have to harken back 25 years to the “heyday” all the time. We now have a new “heyday” for a younger generation of fans. Hopefully they will be talking about this team 20 years from now.

 

[hawk30]

What even is this

 

[RoyIsALegend]

“I wasn’t even alive yet but here’s why you’re wrong.”

God bless today’s kids.

 

[Ararana]

For me personally the rivalry meant nothing. I was alive to witness it but I remember being a kid who was much more invested in actual hockey than all the fighting (it got old fast).

I watched unrivaled last night, I still don't get it lol. Bunch of grown ass men acting like f***ing animals. If anything it made me sympathize with Detroit more than Colorado. Watching it again as an adult, Lemieux's hit on Draper was complete bullshit and super dangerous. The fact that he STILL hasn't apologized is crazy to me.

And somehow I had no idea about Konstantinov and his accident. That's some depressing shit.

 

[Richard Doll]

I still say f*** the Wings.

That said, the rivalry is pretty much dead and has been replaced, I now hate the Knights just about as much as the Wings.

 

[Turbonium]

Yeah can't say I at all care about the Red Wings at this point. I don't think the Avs were ever in their shadow, it was just a heated rivalry that has fizzled out for obvious reasons. Anyone still feeling negative emotions towards the Red Wings might need to seek some help of some sort. Let it go.

 

[Foppberg]

I didn't really start watching hockey until 2006, so I just missed out on that era. Even though it was before my time it's what got me to be an Avs fans. I Can't imagine the amount of hours I've spent watching old games on YouTube.

About 2 years ago I went over to the Wings board to ask about Larkin's linemates for a hockey pool and was banned from that thread and docked points for trolling. So the rivarly still lives in other ways

 

[Gatorbait19]

It was unquestionably one of (if not the most) bitter, hard-nosed and entertaining rivalries in hockey in the last 30+ years if not all sports. They were literally the best, most intense games I can remember watching when I was growing up. Then throw in the fact that they were typically the 2 best teams in the league and the winner was likely to win the Cup (from 96-02 the Avs-wings combined to win 5 of 7 Cups), and it made the rivalry to be something truly special.

I can understand not feeling an attachment to it if you didn’t live through it. But for those of us that did, there will always be a special place in our heart for it.

 

[niwotsblessing]

I grew up a fan of the NY Islanders, 25 minutes from the Nassau Coliseum. I still hate the Rangers, always will.

The Dead Things were a dirty team, the rivalry began when Slava Kozlov smashed Adam Foote's face into the boards drawing blood and no doubt damaging Adam's proud beak. And then, as now, the refs watched the whole thing go down and did f*** all- no penalty, nothing. After that it was on. And through it all the refs and the league did nothing to reign in those games, and so the players did what they felt needed to be done to win. Go find a YouTube video of Vladimir's Konstatinov boarding players from other teams, and other dirty hits. They called him "Vlad the Impaler" for a reason. So yes, we countered by getting Pepe and Chris Draper suffered the consequences. And even then the refs did nothing, which led to the brawl.

That whole rivalry has to been seen in the larger context of how the league, through the refs, enforced the rules, or not, and worked to keep the games focused on hockey. There was great hockey played by great players on both teams, yet in my view the NHL is responsible for letting things get out of hand.

I don't have as much passion for the rivalry now, in part because Joe Sakic has built a new championship team, and because the Wings are the trash of the league. Yet when we play them I am still satisfied with an Avs win in ways that don't happen when we beat Buffalo.

Personal story: years ago I was at The Can for a regular season game against the Wings, with a guy I knew who was from Michigan. The Avs were losing and on the PP. Naturally they were kicking around, passing the puck around the perimeter "looking for a shot." My friend and I were 14 rows off the ice, and after watching the pathetic display I yelled "SHOOT!" as loud as I could. Rob Blake followed my instructions and blasted a point shot past the hapless Wings goalie. Folks in our section were impressed by by coaching skills.

 

[Islay1989]

The hit by Claude didn't start the rivalry. Clowns who suggest that are sucking on Dead Things nuts. Things did plenty of dirty stuff before that. Also, f*** Dino the biggest hypocrite in all of hockey, talking shit about Claude after he ax chopped another player on the ice.

 

[shadow1]

First of all, that rivalry had little to nothing to do with our cup wins in 1996 and 2001.
1996 was the first playoff meeting between the Avs and Wings, but at that time, the two teams were merely playoff competitors rather than rivals, not much different than the Avs with the Nucks or Hawks. The hit from Claude Lemieux that started the rivalry didn't take place until the tail end of that series, and even then, it wasn't until 1997 with the Brawl of Hockeytown, well after the 1996 cup win, that the animosity truly boiled into the rivalry it's remembered as today.

This is very inaccurate.

First of all, Detroit won an NHL-record 62 games that year, and were a huge challenge to get by. Second of all, that series got nasty quick. Game 3 was a blood bath, which included the Kozlov forehead smash to Adam Foote, and the subsequent Claude Lemieux sucker punch to Kozlov (Lemieux was suspended for Game 4). The Lemieux hit on Draper was just the culmination of a very nasty series.

As for the playoff meetings that took place after the Brawl in Hockeytown, when the two teams were actually rivals, either the Wings won and went on to win the cup, or the Avs won only to get bounced by the Stars in the next round. As painful as it is to admit, the Avs lost the rivalry with the Wings. That's just a fact, better to admit and accept it than pretending that rivalry was something it was not.

There is no doubt Detroit got the "final word" in the series after smashing Colorado in Game 7 of the 2002 series. But you're making it sound like the entire rivalry was some constant beat down by Detroit, which just shows you didn't watch it (which you admit to).

Detroit struggled for a few years after their '98 Cup. They lost to Colorado in Round 2 of '99, despite taking a 2-0 series lead (when the Avalanche arrived at DTW Airport ahead of Game 3, local employees taunted them with brooms). They lost again to Colorado in Round 2 '00 (in a series that wasn't close at all), and then lost in the Round 1 of '01 to the Kings.

By comparison, the Avalanche...

99: Lost Round 3 (beat Detroit)
00: Lost Round 3 (beat Detroit)
01: Stanley Cup Champions
02: Lost Round 3 (lost to Detroit)

The Avs were constantly on the precipice of going to the Cup Finals, whereas Detroit dealt with early exit after early exit.

Now that the Avs have just won the 2022 cup without the Wings being anywhere in the playoff picture, now our franchise can have an identity that the Wings aren't apart of. We're no longer in another teams shadow, but instead, we're casting other teams in our own shadow.

Colorado was never in the Detroit's shadow. As I just demonstrated above, the last time the Avalanche won the cup, the teams were trending in different directions.

Yes, that changed in 2002. But adding Dominik Hasek, Brett Hull, and Luc Robitaille in the same off-season can do that for a team.

 

[Spleenless Wonder21]

Well:

Detroit started it.

Yet, somehow the Avs were the villains.

Doucheren McCarty jumped Lemieux in the “Turtle Incident” that trash pleb fanbase is so fond of. Then, there’s the inconvenient truth that every major dust up happened at The Joe. They wouldn’t pull that ish in Denver.

They won more cups over the rivalry’s duration, got the last laugh in 2002, not only endured the Cap Era, but continued thriving for another decade. They employed Hull, Hatcher, Bertuzzi.

The main fuel of my distaste is largely that the majority of my friends/hockey fans in my area in general support Detroit. The ones who root for both U Michigan & the Wings are especially insufferable, which is what steered me towards the Avs in the 1st place that fateful fall of 1995.

I know the Blood Feud is over, but I still relish beating them, & shit like this

still draws my ire, while harkening back memories of the glorious battles of yesteryear wherein Colorado was 1 of the top 4 teams & a legit contender for 8 magical seasons.

 

[TequilaBay]

Reading through the replies on this page. I respect the opinions of those offering rebuttals on here, after all, you as an older fan would have more emotional knowledge of this rivalry. However, I'd like to clarify a few things.

1. I'm looking at the rivalry from the perspective of hindsight, looking at the rivalry as a whole with the knowledge we have now, rather than harkening back to emotions of the series pre-2002 when one wouldn't have known where the series would've ended up in the end, when every victory against the Wings felt like a lead up to a specific accomplishment.

2. As for the statement on our identity being "under the Wings shadow", this is again primarily from a post-2002, primarily post-2008, perspective, after the Wings got the final word and our franchise fell into irrelevancy for a long period of time. With a lack of points of interest with our franchise between 2003-2008 and especially 2009-2017, the Wings rivalry became a core tenant of our teams legacy. Again though, looking at the matter from a perspective of hindsight, the Wings won that rivalry, and having much of the entire legacy of your teams franchise being defined by a rivalry which you lost has to be humiliating on some level, regardless of how much you harken back to pre-2002 emotions of the rivalry. Now, thanks to our recent string of post-season success and our cup, our teams legacy can form new points of interest not related to said lost rivalry.

3. As for the 1996 series, even if it was a physical and chirpy series before the Claude hit, it was certainly the Claude hit that really made the beef the rivalry that it was. If that hit didn't happen, the Brawl in Hockeytown wouldn't have happened, and with the 1997 cup, either Detroit would've had a weaker drive and we would've won a back-to-back, or Detroit would've still won the cup, but Avs fans wouldn't have had the same level of emotional distaste as they do in the real events (not saying they would've been all hunky dory with them winning it, just saying that the animosity would've been significantly lowered from what it was in the real events). If the Claude hit didn't happen, the Avs-Wings rivalry wouldn't have been headliner in NHL history that it is today, regardless of how good both teams were at the team, especially since Dallas was also in the same caliber for much of that time as well.

4. I'm just trying to point out that our cup successes in 1996 and 2001 were not because of the Wings rivalry. Again, for 1996, see above, and for 2001, we didn't meet them in the playoffs. Our success was in spite of the Wings rivalry, not because of it.

 

[The Moops]

4. I'm just trying to point out that our cup successes in 1996 and 2001 were not because of the Wings rivalry.

Who said this?

It was a heated rivalry because of cheap and physical play by two insanely stacked teams. Our rivalry with the Stars wasn't as intense because the cheapshots and history weren't there despite meeting in the playoffs several times during those years.

dafuq is this thread

 

[TequilaBay]

Who said this?

It was a heated rivalry because of cheap and physical play by two insanely stacked teams. Our rivalry with the Stars wasn't as intense because the cheapshots and history weren't there despite meeting in the playoffs several times during those years.

dafuq is this thread

Did you quote the wrong bulletpoint of my comment? I didn't say the rivalry wasn't heated in that final bulletpoint, it certainly was heated, no doubt, I just said the 1996 and 2001 cup runs had little to nothing to do with said heated rivalry.

If you meant to reply to my third bulletpoint, I'm simply saying that it was the events that took place after the 1996 series (but related to the Claude hit that happened at the tail end) that made the rivalry the headliner in NHL history it is today. I'm just saying that if the Claude hit didn't happen and the Brawl in Hockeytown didn't happen as a result, the rivalry wouldn't have been the headliner in NHL history it is today. Still would've been physical and chippy, but not a headliner in NHL history.

Main point I was trying to make with this entire thread, the 1996 and 2001 cup runs we had, the Wings rivalry had little to nothing to do with it, and the Wings rivalry itself was more of a detriment than an accomplishment for our franchise due to who got the last word in the end. Apologies if you and others in the comments got sidetracked.

 

[Ceremony]

You can still have a significant rivalry with a team without it being the primary reason for winning or losing a championship every season.

I can't believe I'm going to recommend reading something Adrian Dater wrote, but go and read Blood Feud.

 

[TequilaBay]

You can still have a significant rivalry with a team without it being the primary reason for winning or losing a championship every season.

I can't believe I'm going to recommend reading something Adrian Dater wrote, but go and read Blood Feud.

And the Avs did. I'm just saying the rivalry isn't exactly something to be proud of in hindsight, with the knowledge we have now. I just want the Avs to have an identity separate from that Wings rivalry as well as from being the ex-Nordiques, and now we're able to have it thanks to our 2022 cup and string of playoff success since 2018/19. If we don't meet the Wings in the final at all during our cup window, that will only solidify that separate identity, which is a good thing if you ask me.

 

[forsbergavs32]

I got into hockey in 98-99, where the rivalry was still there but not as intense since Lemieux was gone, but I still developed a hatred for them due to learning about what happened. I feel like the rivalry caused the Avs and Wings to push each other to get better. After losing in 96, the Wings went out and got Shanny and used the loss to get better, which resulted in 2 Cups in a row, while losing twice in 2 WCF got the Avs to eventually pick up Blake and Bourque and even though they didn’t face each other in 01, there was still motivation for the Avs and it got them a Cup. So I think it really did have an effect.

Nowadays i don’t have that hatred for the Wings because the rivalry pretty much died after the 02 WCF (that game 7 still stings). When the Avs faced the wings in 07 or 08 the Avs were a bad team so it was no contest and today is different because the Avs are a championship team and the Wings are rebuilding. The Calvert incident was bad but I looked at it as a dirty play as I would from most any team and it didn’t really remind me of the rivalry. Really hope the Wings and Avs can face each other in the finals soon so we can possibly get rivalry-lite.


*** Spoilers if you haven’t watched Unrivaled yet ***




I watched unrivaled yesterday. Forgot about the Konstantinov accident, that segment brought me to tears, such a horrible thing to happen to anyone. In hindsight that hit by Lemieux was bullshit and he should have apologized at some point, especially since he approached Draper at the 2015 Draft. That said, it does feel sad that Kris Draper still holds that much animosity against Lemieux today. Draper came off really poorly in the documentary, especially considering his best friend in Darren McCarty has done 2 appearances with Lemieux (including in front of a crowd of Wings fans this year) and while those 2 may not be best friends, they realize it was ages ago and people make mistakes (Lemieux the Draper hit and McCarty sucker punching Lemieux from behind and not letting him answer the bell legit, Lemieux never turtles IMO). Draper just comes across as super bitter considering he won 3 Cups with Detroit, beating Lemieux in 2 of those runs.

 

[ASmileyFace]

What even is this

An excellent and long winded troll attempt.