Down and Dirty with the Red Wings and Avalanche

Looking back at the rivalry between the Colorado Avalanche and Detroit Red Wings, with a focus on the 1997 Western Conference Finals. Drop your memories in the comments.

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If you thought about it during the 1997 Western Conference Finals perhaps taking a quiet moment for reflection while apps coach Mark Crawford was trying to Storm the Red Wings bench or while Brendan Shanahan was slugging the sense out of Renee Corbet or while mik Keem was using

His stick to carve his initials into the back of eigor lov’s C you might have reached the conclusion that hockey’s fiercest rivalry didn’t make sense traditionally rivalries are based on history and proximity Colorado and Detroit failed on both counts just 2 years before the 97 Conference Finals

The Avalanche were known as the nordes and the team team was based in Quebec for 16 years the wings and nordes played in different conferences never meeting more than four times in the regular season and Detroit and Denver are separated by 1,156 Mi and a 2-hour time difference

Nevertheless in 1997 there wasn’t a better or more bitter rivalry in North America with the wings and abs lacked in history and proximity they made up in mutual loathing the Rivalry came to life in the 1996 Conference Finals when Claud lumy rearranged Chris Draper’s face with a cheap shot in game six things

Escalated on March 26th 199 97 when a full-scale brawl broke out that included a goalie fight between Mike Vernon and Patrick W in the 1997 Conference Finals the Waring sides fought their last battle of the season and the Red Wings emerged Victorious eliminating the defending champions in six games in

Finishing 38 26 and 18 the wings seemingly blew off the regular season during which Scotty Bowman mixed in matched lines and even used Sergey federov on defense there was one game in particular that Bowman wanted badly to win the March 26th contest between the wings and abs at Joe Lewis Arena the ABS

Had beaten the wings in three straight regular season meetings but nobody could question the wings courage after their 65 overtime Victory on March 26th that game brought the wings together and their record following what is routinely called the March 26th blood bath as a testament to its significance including

Their game six victory over the ales the wings went 157 and three following bloody Wednesday and went on to sweep the Philadelphia Flyers in the finals to win their first Stanley Cup since 1955 there were more than passing similarities between the March 26th bloodbath and the Conference Finals game

Four at the Joe featured six Red Wings goals an exorbitant number of penalty minutes in the presence of referee Paul dorski who’ been the target of a postgame rant by Mark Crawford on March 26th dvorski who was working his first Conference Finals was assigned the pivotal game four but after he lost

Control of game two of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Flyers and Rangers the NHL should have reconsidered the assignment dorski was the wrong ring Master for a circus that had commenced a date earlier when Patrick W taunted the wings in the media the have stred into game four like schoolyard bullies

Spoiling for a fight but when the Red Wings stood up to the bravado the ABS began falling apart dorski called five straight minor penalties in the first period against Colorado and when law complained about the last of them he was assessed a 10-minute misconduct law gave

Up three more goals in the second period and was yanked with Colorado trailing 5 nothing giving him a ringside seed as the game devolved into chaos there were 204 penalty minutes in a third period that included eight fighting majers and 14 misconducts Shanahan battered Corbet who he outweighed by 30 lbs and Claude

Limu picked on Slava kof during his scrum before the wings Bob Rous moved into to keep lumu at Bay with 218 left Crawford had to be restrained from going after Bowman on the wings bench he was a bizarre Tableau the immaculately dressed Crawford eyes bulging looking as if he

Were one exploitive away from his head exploding and The rumpled Bowman one hand in his pocket and sporting a beuse grim the next day the NHL finded Crawford $10,000 a contr Crawford apologized but then it was Detroit that played excuse me hockey in a six nothing loss in game five at McNichols Arena

Vernon was chased after allowing four goals on 10 shots but for game six he was back in form at Joe leis Arena making 15 saves to help Detroit finish the job in advance to the Stanley Cup finals the wings made quick work of the flyers in the finals out scoring them 16

To6 in a 4- game sweep Mike Vernon won the K SM trophy as playoff MVP and the wings brought the Stanley Cup home to Detroit for the first time since 1955 that’s all for this look back at the Rivalry between the wings and abs in 1997 thanks for tuning in please like

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