The Good Friday Brawl – 25 Years Later

On this Good Friday, it’s time to look back 25 years ago at one of the greatest hockey fights ever. It’s the Good Friday Brawl that took place at the old Montreal Forum between the Montreal Canadiens and the old Quebec Nordiques in the NHL Adams Division semifinals. Until Gary Bettman corrected the Divisional playoff system, we had these silly playoffs that had four teams of the four NHL divisions squaring off to determine a division champion, then the two division winners would play for the conference championship, then the two conference champions played in the Stanley Cup Finals. It was screwed up.

But when you had the Canadiens and Nordiques, you had a true hatred since the teams were in the same Canadian province, located quite close to each other. In Game 6 of of the 1984 Adams Division semifinals, the emotions between Montreal and Quebec reached the boiling point. There were 15 different fights that had broken out on the ice. There were familiar names, Guy Lafleur, the Stasny brothers, Dale and Mark Hunter who played on opposite teams, Pierre Mondou, Chris “Knuckles” Nilan and yes, there was Chris Chelios playing for Montreal at the time.

Let’s look at the fight and how it all began. We have three clips. We start in the second period when the brawl broke out. The legendary Bob Cole and current Detroit Red Wings analyst Mickey Redmond called the game for CBC.

Here’s the second intermission hosted by CBC legend Dick Irvin (still going strong today) and Don Cherry. Grapes is classic as always.

And here’s the beginning of the third period when the brawl broke out again. Notice how the public address announcer is calling out the penalties from the second period while the fights are continuing.

It was funny to hear Bob Cole denounce the violence. Great stuff. I wonder how Jack Edwards would have called this.