Your Favorite "Hockey Villain"

[SealsFan]

As a kid, I loved Glen Sather when he was with the Rangers. He was known for cutting the palms out of his gloves so he could grab opponents' sweaters!

Some other faves who come to mind...

Derek Sanderson
Terry O'Reilly
Dale Hunter
Billy Smith

 

[pdd]

Konstantinov.

 

[South Florida Canuck]

Theoren Fleury

Its hard to see Fleury as a villain knowing that he was being sexually molested by his coach in juniors which led to many of his drug and alcohol problems. He's more of like a tragic figure in my view.

My favorite would be Tie Domi because he was such a badass and because he's Albanian and I'm half Albanian

 

[nnynetpotato]

Always liked Probert.

 

[YippieKaey]

Ron Hextall, Dale Hunter, Esa Tikkanen and a couple of other players who combine a pretty high skill level with some rambunctious behaviour.

Plus Matthew Barnaby for looking exactly like a college bully ********* looks like in the movies....

 

[Crafton]

Ulf Samuelsson

 

[Psycho Papa Joe]

Without a doubt, Chris Chelios.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Heh. Scott Stevens was my favorite player growing up, but I didn't even think of him when I thought of "villians." I thought "villain" entailed guys who bent or broke the rules and Scott Stevens' violence was pretty much within the rules of the game (edit: at least in the second half of his career).

On the other hand, I knew Claude Lemieux was a total dick, but as a Devils fan, I couldn't help but love him.

When Stevens is on the other team, he doesn't look like a rat, he looks like the Death Star. That's certainly the case for me, a Quinn-era Leafs fans, as much as having Tucker, Domi and Corson on our team gave us no room to talk.

 

[GarbageGoal]

Eddie Shack. The one really black mark on his career was of course the ugly stick swinging incident with Ziedel, however in his prime with the Leafs', the stuff he pulled behind the play, behind the ref's back, was absolutely infamous. Even in-play he'd leave his feet and quite literally piggyback guys, rip their sticks from their hands and toss it across the ice, motor mouth going a mile a minute. Over the past 40yrs, most of the "Villians" possessed a far more "dangerous" edge to their Shenanigans. Matt Cooke for example. Theo Fleury who would absolutely lose his thread. Tikkanen who was a bit of a switchblade artist. Clarke who was just plain nasty.

Nice old tyme hockey reference there. I know people who've invited him to reunions in recent years, and the guy is still totally out there.

For me, I'll go with Todd Bertuzzi. Really don't know why he's still allowed in the league, other than he's a star player, which means he's excused for his behavior.

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

The Wood Tik

 

[MadLuke]

PP Lemieux, Darcy Tucker (if he was), Scott Stevens after/during the playoff series vs Carolina Hurricanes was kind of a vilain, hitting an old Francis like that, is comment Bring in on at the press conference about next game rehilatation from the Canes player's, etc...

 

[double5son10]

Chelios is a personal favorite. Cracks Propp's head open w/ an elbow then later calls Propp a gutless puke, apparently for bleeding too much? Fights include such heavyweights as Robitaille, Recchi, Glenn Anderson, Fleury, Teemu. Total spot picker and absolutely dirty w/ the stick. Just an all-around twit. And of course one of the finest defensemen to ever play the game.

 

[vaspa]

Mine is quite obvious looking at my avatar, Esa Tikkanen.

Tikkanen was just absolutely relentless in his yapping and stickwork and he could man mark other teams star players in a way that you see no more in NHL due to strict systems teams deploy nowadays. And in addition to all that he quite often scored big and timely goals, too. His playoff scoring record stands at 186gp, 72g+60a=132p.

I remember reading some Gretzky autobiography (written during his time with the Kings) as a kid in which Gretzky said that the best way he could imagine scoring Stanley Cup winning goal was the puck deflecting into the net off Tikkanens butt.


Action starts around 0:40 mark

 

[Fred Taylor]

My favourite would be Eric Lindros. Eddie Shore is the perfect all-time villain.

 

[WingsFan95]

Most likely because the Wings and Devils only clashed in 95 and that memory faded with the 97 and 98 Cup runs.

To be fair, I do think the guy is an arse, but hit take-out hits were legendary. I remember the hit on Kariya in Game 6 of the 03 Final.

Classic Stevens.

 

[Mitchnesses]

Ron Hextall
Billy Smith
Marty McSorley
Bob Probert
Theo Fleury
Stu Grimson


Aki Berg

 

[Epsilon]

Ulf Samuelsson for sure.

 

[Kershaw]

Tikkanen.

 

[whatname]

Marc Savard. He was a punk in his younger days, but the things he did were pretty funny. e.g. Rangers vs Isles scrumb after the whistle, ref is about to stop it, Savard comes from nowhere and chops Chara on the back of the leg then skates away when Chara wants to pound him. Against the Leafs in one of Gretzky's last games in Toronto, in the first period, a Leaf goes in to hit him, he flips the puck at the Leaf's face to avoid the check. In the third period of same Leaf game, Domi tries to hit him, he flips the puck into Domi's face to avoid getting hit. Oh yeah, he also bit Tucker.

 

[diligent_d]

I would go with Ulf "Robocop" Samuelsson and Jarkko Ruutu. Two of my favorite villains.