Flashback: Brendan Shanahan describes infamous “Fight Night at the Joe”

Every Detroit Red Wings fan remembers the legendary "Fight Night at the Joe" on March 26, 1997, against the hated Colorado Avalanche.

Detroit was still seething from the previous year's playoff series, in particular at Avalanche forward Claude Lemieux for his dirty hit from behind that rearranged Kris Draper's face. The Avalanche had defeated the Red Wings in the team's first three matchups of the 1996-97 season and wanted number four. Detroit had other plans.

A wrestling match between skilled forwards Igor Larionov and Peter Forsberg set the stage for Darren McCarty to exact revenge on Lemieux, beating him into a pulp while Lemieux infamously "turtled". Patrick Roy immediately skated out to assist his forward and was greeted by a flying Brendan Shanahan, who then squared off with defenseman Adam Foote. Mike Vernon soon got in on the fun, and the two goaltenders went at it at center ice. Adam Deadmarsh and Vladimir Konstantinov would scrap before the period ended, and the game would feature an additional five fights before regulation ended tied at 5-5.

Detroit would emerge victories, defeating the Avalanche 6-5 in overtime, with the game-winner appropriately being scored by Darren McCarty.

Take a look at how Shanahan himself described the events that transpired on the ice:

"What's really funny about that brawl, if brawls are funny....brawls aren't funny kids! But back then, brawls were hilarious. What was interesting about that brawl was when the game was over and we won in overtime after Darren McCarty scored the winning goal, we all piled into the coaches room to sort of watch the winning goal, but we wanted to see the fight. Obviously the whole arena saw Vernon and Roy, and Roy and I colliding in midair. Our bench saw it, the commentators were going crazy, the hockey world was was watching this game."

"But when Darren saw, he had no idea it occurred. He thought it was just him and Lemieux. He had no idea Vernon was fighting, he had no idea any of this was happening. But he played the whole game thinking that whole riot was just him on top of Lemieux. He didn't realize the crime scene that was going on around him while this was happening, with the highlight being little Mike Vernon throwing a wild left haymaker and cutting Roy above the eye."