3 Hours of Sabres' brawls

[\GoBillsInDallas/]

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

 

[Eleven]

It's something to do; thank you.

[Eleven]

Dane Jackson in toward the end of the first clip--had just been called up and so he had no nameplate.

(Good thing he wasn't a goalie without a customized mask!)

[Neo]

2 hours ago, \GoBillsInDallas/ said:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

 

I’m laughing ....  ah, my misspent youth.  Jim Lorentz givin’ it to Terry O’Reilly.   Have to see it to believe it.  Those Big Bad Bruin teams hated playing the Sabres, victory after victory notwithstanding.    

[Eleven]

Two hours into this rabbit hole, I am enjoying these much more than I should.  Maybe the two weeks of boredom have lowered my bar; maybe it's really just entertaining, but thank you again.

[Stoner]

19 minutes ago, Eleven said:

Two hours into this rabbit hole, I am enjoying these much more than I should.  Maybe the two weeks of boredom have lowered my bar; maybe it's really just entertaining, but thank you again.

Have you whipped aquafaba into a meringue yet?

[Eleven]

21 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Have you whipped aquafaba into a meringue yet?

Sadly, I am without aquafaba and also without a need to make meringue.  I'll try to be better.

[Ogelthorpe]

Those newer fights were embarrassing. No wonder why NHL got rid of fighting. 

[That Aud Smell]

What a gift. Enjoying these, with some sense of guilty pleasure.

[Weave]

14 minutes ago, Let's Go B-Lo said:

You forget how much you grew to hate Bruce Shoebottom in such a short period of time.

I loved him.  He was such a good victim for Kevin Maguire.

[Kruppstahl]

13 minutes ago, Weave said:

I loved him.  He was such a good victim for Kevin Maguire.

The (short lived) Bruce Shoebottom era is one of the greatest in Bruins/Sabres history.

I believe it was the 1988 or possibly 1989 playoffs.  We were playing Boston in Buffalo.

The last 30 or 40 seconds of the game took close to a half hour to play because every time the puck was dropped to get the game over with, a new batch of fights and total mayhem broke out.

Mike Robitaille doing color was in his glory, commenting on how neither team would "give an inch" and how he had never seen two teams "more bullheaded." 

More sheer excitement and entertainment in that half hour than the last 10 Sabres seasons combined, at least for me.

 

 

[Eleven]

4 minutes ago, Kruppstahl said:

The (short lived) Bruce Shoebottom era is one of the greatest in Bruins/Sabres history.

I believe it was the 1988 or possibly 1989 playoffs.  We were playing Boston in Buffalo.

The last 30 or 40 seconds of the game took close to a half hour to play because every time the puck was dropped to get the game over with, a new batch of fights and total mayhem broke out.

Mike Robitaille doing color was in his glory, commenting on how neither team would "give an inch" and how he had never seen two teams "more bullheaded." 

More sheer excitement and entertainment in that half hour than the last 10 Sabres seasons combined, at least for me.

 

 

Here's the box score (see right column for penalties):  https://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/bos-vs-buf/1988/04/09/1987030123#game=1987030123,game_state=final

[Kruppstahl]

11 minutes ago, Eleven said:

Here's the box score (see right column for penalties):  https://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/bos-vs-buf/1988/04/09/1987030123#game=1987030123,game_state=final

Thanks for that.  That game is from April 9, 1988.

I also just found this on Youtube, from April 6, 1989!  

It doesn't help that we played Boston in the first round of the playoffs, and lost to them (LOL) in both the 1988 and 1989 playoffs.  

 

It was the same "era" with many of the same player names.  I think the end of game incident I am remembering is from the 1987-88 season though, so the game would have been played in the spring of 1988.  

I assumed the entire 1/2 hour of game time would be on Youtube.  I bet it is there if I dig around deep enough. 

EDIT: I think you have the game, Eleven.  That was the 18/19/20 combo of Halkidis, Maguire, Hartmann, with Clark Gillies to boot.  

Boston had Shoebottom  and an aging Willi f-ing Plett !  I forgot about that. LOL.  

Guys like Crowder would go, Neely would go, Jay Miller was one of the greatest heavyweights in league history, etc.

Just awesome! 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Kruppstahl

[Weave]

16 minutes ago, Kruppstahl said:

The (short lived) Bruce Shoebottom era is one of the greatest in Bruins/Sabres history.

I believe it was the 1988 or possibly 1989 playoffs.  We were playing Boston in Buffalo.

The last 30 or 40 seconds of the game took close to a half hour to play because every time the puck was dropped to get the game over with, a new batch of fights and total mayhem broke out.

Mike Robitaille doing color was in his glory, commenting on how neither team would "give an inch" and how he had never seen two teams "more bullheaded." 

More sheer excitement and entertainment in that half hour than the last 10 Sabres seasons combined, at least for me.

 

 

I was sitting in the oranges for that game.  The fights in the stands while that went on was unreal.

[Kruppstahl]

1 minute ago, Weave said:

I was sitting in the oranges for that game.  The fights in the stands while that went on was unreal.

Tell me more.  Boston fans in the building?  If I am not mistaken, the series we are discussing also involved a pair of incidents (one in each building) with members of the crowd throwing beer/stuff onto the opposing coach/player's bench.

Remember all that?  I remember the announcers talking about how predictable it was when the 2nd crowd to do it finally enacted some revenge, retaliating for the first incident!  

I want to say it happened first in the Boston Garden, and the second incident was in the Aud, but that's fuzzy.  

Now that I think about it, this 1988 series with Boston has to be one of the better series in Sabres history for sheer entertainment/excitement/narrative tension.

 

 

[Weave]

1 hour ago, Kruppstahl said:

Tell me more.  Boston fans in the building?  If I am not mistaken, the series we are discussing also involved a pair of incidents (one in each building) with members of the crowd throwing beer/stuff onto the opposing coach/player's bench.

Remember all that?  I remember the announcers talking about how predictable it was when the 2nd crowd to do it finally enacted some revenge, retaliating for the first incident!  

I want to say it happened first in the Boston Garden, and the second incident was in the Aud, but that's fuzzy.  

Now that I think about it, this 1988 series with Boston has to be one of the better series in Sabres history for sheer entertainment/excitement/narrative tension.

 

 

Yup.  Boston fans doused Muckler with beer the game prior.  Buffalo fans returned the favor.

I was there with my GF (wife now).  There were pockets of Bruins fans all over and there were skirmishes all over.  At one point between periods I escorted my GF to a bathroom.  I waited in the little set in area for the women's bathroom.  A fight broke out between a group of Sabres fans and Bruins fans right in front of the little bay I was in.  The restroom door opened, I saw it was my GF, and I shut it right away as the fight was spilling into the bay/entranceway for the restroom.   I had one hand on the door, keeping it closed, and the other cocked, ready to throw haymaker if I got hit.

One section over from us a particluarly well juiced, and loud, group of Bruins fans got into an argument with a middle aged guy in front of them.  He was there with his pre-teen son.  He was mad at them for the language they were using.  One of the Bruins fans kicked the guy in the head and then all hell broke loose.  A huge group of security showed up and hauled them all off.  The kicker showed up on the TV camera landing in the reds about 10 minutes later.  He was doing a Rocky pose on the landing. Pretty sure he broke away from Security.  They showed up and a Benny Hill chase ensued.

It was a crazy game.  Haven't seen one like that before, or since.

[Tondas]

A couple things:

1.  Rick Dudley was an animal!!  Who else do you want in a bar fight?  I still want him as GM.  We need his jam.

2.  I don't know if the Sabres won any of these games, but I didn't care. 

3.  Did you see how the players reacted to those fights.  They were a team.  They cared and played for each other.

4.  The fans were into the game more than I have seen over the past decade.

5.  I haven't seen team camaraderie like that in the last decade.

6.  I miss this.  I want this.  THIS is being tough to play against.

7.  And where do you find another Danny Gare who can kick your a$$ and score 50 goals.

8.  Feel free to "OK Boomer" me.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Tondas

[Kruppstahl]

11 hours ago, Tondas said:

A couple things:

1.  Rick Dudley was an animal!!  Who else do you want in a bar fight?  I still want him as GM.  We need his jam.

2.  I don't know if the Sabres won any of these games, but I didn't care. 

3.  Did you see how the players reacted to those fights.  They were a team.  They cared and played for each other.

4.  The fans were into the game more than I have seen over the past decade.

5.  I haven't seen team camaraderie like that in the last decade.

6.  I miss this.  I want this.  THIS is being tough to play against.

7.  And where do you find another Danny Gare who can kick your a$$ and score 50 goals.

8.  Feel free to "OK Boomer" me.

Couldn't agree more with your points.  I have no idea who would not prefer the older style of game, if exposed to that then and this crap we have now.

It didn't happen every night in the old days, but as a general rule, games were fueled with a competitive antagonism that is almost completely gone from the game in the regular season now.  Current games have the intensity of pre-season affairs.  Yawn fests.  

There is a new "code" to the game.  You don't bother me too much and I won't bother you too much and together we can enjoy nice, long, healthy careers and millions of dollars in income for not having to bust our humps too much.  I still say this is why teams now attack other teams for huge, clean, open-ice hits.  In the old days that was just "hockey" now it's a violation of the code.  It's like what are you trying to do?  Cause an injury?  Shorten someone's income generating career?  Knock that stuff off!  

My favorite memories of Buffalo crowds going insane and RJ's finest calls almost exclusively stem from crazy brawls on the ice and that sort of thing.  It was those moments when RJ was at his finest IMO.  He absolutely LOVES tough, physical play! 

Not to get off-point, but I often wonder why RJ bothers to continue working during this phase of Sabres hockey.  There is no way in the world he finds this garbage entertaining.  So why does he do it?  Ego.  He loves to be the man in the spotlight and I think he enjoys calling a game more than anything in this world.

If it was not for that, he would have retired several seasons ago.