Today is a special day where we should take time to remember those who have dropped gloves, gone toe to toe, tiltskies and started throwing bombs in honor of our wonderful City of Buffalo. On December 8, 1991 the Calgary Flames took on the Buffalo Sabres for a heated game at the Aud and you could cut the tension with a knife. The media had hyped up this anticipated game ever since Calgary defenseman Jamie Macoun broke the jaw of Pat Lafontaine during the Nov. 16 earlier match-up.

Around 17:34 of the first period, all hell broke loose and both teams went at it on the Calgary bench. Rob Ray makes a great cameo and somehow finds himself shirtless as he basically takes on the entire Calgary team. The Sabres were currently on a 0-8-4 streak at this point and its safe to say the boys were getting restless and frustrated. This eventually led to coach Rick Dudley getting the boot.

Don Koharski, who was reffing the game, handed out 147 penalty minutes and 10 game misconducts. Greg Wyshynski of Puck Daddy makes a good point with this one. Thank goodness Brendan Shanahan was not around to deal with this, because his “suspension video would have been slightly longer than the director’s cut of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.”

Would this happen today? While major bench brawls are few and far between these days, I can’t even imagine the number of fines and suspensions that would result. It’s good that players are playing smarter and being safer on the ice, but every now and then it’s good to take a trip down old time hockey lane.