This day in #PGHistory: At Civic Arena, Mario Lemieux makes his home debut, and tallies an assist 18 seconds into the game against Vancouver. (1984)
The quick assist was no surprise to the home crowd, but what came next was. The rookie got into his 1st fight – with Gary Lupul. pic.twitter.com/W2Q9pU5PTy
— Pittsburgh Clothing Company (@PGHClothingCo) October 17, 2018
Shoutout to Pittsburgh Clothing Co. for dropping this absolute gem from the clouds yesterday on twitter.
Now, if I’m being completely honest here for a second, I had absolutely zero idea Mario Lemieux even got into a single fight in his 17-year NHL career. But little did I know, #66 had a little bit of a feisty side to him (albeit it appeared more so during the earlier years of his playing days). In fact, according to hockeyfights.com, Lemieux dropped the mitts a total of six times during his playing career, boasting an unofficial record of 4-1-1. The first of which (as evidenced above) came during Lemieux’s first ever regular season game at the old Civic Arena on October 17, 1984.
After assisting on a goal in his first shift, the spry 18-year old rookie from Montreal proved that not only could he handle his own offensively, but he could also open up a can of whoop-ass with his fists, too. Sure, Lemieux may have had a slight height advantage to the tune of which your boyfriend claims his pecker size to be (hint: he’s lying), but he still beat the absolute piss out of Canucks forward Gary Lupul to the point where his teammate/Canucks goaltender, John Garrett, had to break up the fight. And here’s the best part of it all – Garrett eventually got a game misconduct for his actions. Think about that for a second. Instead of intentionally shouldering a guy in the head like you have to do nowadays to get kicked out of a hockey game, all you had to do 30 years ago was help prevent your teammate from getting knocked unconscious by a superior fighting opponent (or, in technical terms, be the third player involved in a fight). Fun times in ’84. A much simpler time that sort of didn’t make any fucking sense.
P.S. – Here are a few more videos of 66 dropping the mitts for your viewing pleasure on this beautiful fall, October morning:
(Please help me delete this last one from the internet.)
Have a Thursday, folks. Go Pens.
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