Colorado Avalanche: Remembering the Great Roy-Osgood Fight

Colorado Avalanche Throwback Thursday: Goalie Patrick Roy faced off against his Detroit Red Wings counterpart, Chirs Osgood, in an epic goalie battle.

Colorado Avalanche great Patrick Roy has ever been known for his fiery temper. It was his temper that even got him traded to Colorado, a.k.a. Le Trade. He was renowned for being a fiery player while with the Avalanche, too.

During his career, Roy got into two goalie battles, and he also fought left wing Randy Burridge while with the Canadiens. Now, because all these fights took place in the modern era of filming every game, Roy is often perceived as the fightingest goalie of all time. He is not — that distinction goes to Islanders goalie Billy Smith, whose career spanned from 197o to 1989. In that time, he was assessed 20 fighting majors.

The next closest was relative unknown Al Smith, who played from 1964 to 1981. During that time he racked up seven fighting majors. I want to mention Ron Hextall because he had a similar reputation to Roy’s — and twice the temper, apparently because he racked up six during a career that spanned from 1984 to 1999.

I’m going to dare say that, of all Hockey Hall of Fame goalies, Patrick Roy has the most fights. (If you want to research that factoid and correct me, please do so. I just want to focus on the one fight.)

Roy’s most famous fight might possibly be when he took on Mike Vernon, but that’s only because of this iconic photo:

This is the Patrick Roy I remember...circa 1997 after goalie fight with Mike Vernon pic.twitter.com/n8crHkUKD5
— Penguins Nation (@EngellandsEye) October 21, 2013

Despite the bleeding, Roy was the clear winner of the fight because he landed so many punches.

On April 1, 1998, Patrick Roy and Chris Osgood weren’t about April Fool’s jokes. Instead, they were in the midst of one of the greatest sports rivalries in history — the Colorado Avalanche vs. Detroit Red Wings.

In that 1997-98 season, Colorado went 39-26-17 for 95 points, which was enough to win the Pacific Division. Just their third year in Colorado, the Avs were still playing in McNichols Arena.

The Avalanche went 2-1-1 against their Western Conference rival Red Wings that season. Alas, they went on to lose in the Western Conference quarterfinals against the Edmonton Oilers. (That’s before the Oilers went into their weird decline of getting the first-overall every year, yet still sucking.)

The Red Wings beat the Washington Capitals for the Stanley Cup that year, but let’s not focus on that. Let’s get to the fight.

So, April 1, 1998, Joe Louis Arena. Like I said, this was in the center of their epic rivalry. In that game alone, we saw 46 penalties for a whopping total of 228 penalty minutes. Roy accounted for 31 of those minutes:

2 minutes for elbowing, 1st period
2 minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct, 1st period
2 minutes for leaving the crease, 3rd period
5 minutes for fighting, 3rd period
10 minutes for misconduct, 3rd period
10 minute game misconduct, 3rd period

Yeah, in the modern era, he would have been suspended for that game.

Osgood only accounted for 17 penalty minutes, all stemming from the fight:

5 minutes for fighting, 3rd period
10 minutes for misconduct, 3rd period
10 minute game misconduct, 3rd period

Meh, where’s the heart, Chris?

Now, the Avalanche went on to lose the game 2-0 — damn you, Sergei Federov, you ever were the bane of my existence in those days. But let’s look at that glorious fight:

As you can see, the initial scrum starts away from either crease. It didn’t take much back then — in this case, just Warren Rychel jostling Wing Bob Rouse. They all skate in, and the melee ensues.

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Watching the video, you see Patrick Roy is just watching from his crease. Everyone has a dance partner, and for the most part they’re just wrestling each other to the ice.

As the officials just look on, Roy removes his mask and skates over to see what’s going on. Osgood — who inexplicably wore the throwback mask his entire career — hesitantly follows suit. It’s clear he knows it’s not a good idea, but he does it anyway.

Roy tries to get some of the Red Wings players to stop grinding Avalanche players into the ice. Avs forward Sylvain Lefebvre assures him it’s all covered. But that’s ok, because that’s when Roy spies Osgood hesitatingly skating over.

The official knows what’s coming next. He starts trying to keep Patrick away from Osgood, who has the good sense to pause and kind of skate in an arc. (In case you’re wondering, this was his first and only fight.)

Patrick Roy is calling for Chris Osgood to join the battle. He “walks up” on the Wings goalie, who did remove his mask in preparation. They meet. Roy gets a couple light taps in, Osgood answers with a light tap, and then Patrick whales on him.

Oh, man, Roy connects with 10 hooks, 2 uppercuts and a haymaker. Osgood does eventually drag him down, but I think it’s just because Patrick got so tired punching Osgood in the head!

Next: Roy Beats Brodeaur's All-Time Record

This kind of melee would never be allowed to take place in modern hockey. Officials would have stepped in sooner, and “supplemental discipline” would have been meted out. I’m not going to comment in this post about the change except to remark you saw far fewer liberties going unpunished back in those days.

The Colorado Avalanche-Detroit Red Wings rivalry was one of the most celebrated in all of sports history. And at the center of a lot of the animosity was our very fiery goalie, Patrick Roy.