Unrivaled: Inside Hockey’s Bloodiest Rivalry

The Avalanche beat the Lightning to win the Stanley Cup last night, sending the trophy back to Colorado for the first time since 2001. It was an era when the Avalanche, and their archrivals the Detroit Red Wings, were engaged in a multi-year blood feud that became the center of the hockey universe. It was a rivalry perhaps best remembered for a game played 25 years ago, on March 26, 1997 in Detroit’s Joe Lewis Arena, and is now better remembered as “Fight Night at the Joe.” During the first period, Detroit’s Darren McCarty sought revenge on Colorado’s Claude Lemieux for a violent check in the previous year’s playoffs on the Red Wings’ Kris Draper. The hit caused severe injuries to Draper’s face, enraging the Red Wings, who were furious that Lemieux refused to even apologize to Draper. Now, a quarter-century later, those who were part of it are opening up about what made the rivalry so intense, as part of the latest E:60 special “Unvrivaled.” Detroit native Dave Fleming joins us to discuss the trajectory of the rivalry and why we may never see anything like it again.

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