This Day in Hockey History – January 4, 1987 – “Punch-Up in Piestany”

(Photo: YouTube Video)

Currently the 2020 World Junior Ice Hockey Championship is underway, hosted this time by the Czech Republic, and is in its final two days of games to see which country’s Under-20 hockey players will win the gold medal. On January 4, 2020, the semifinal games will be played—the first between Team Sweden and Team Russia. The second between Team Canada and Team Finland. The winners of those two games will go on to play on Sunday for the gold while the losing teams will play to see who earns the bronze medal. This is the 44th annual tournament.

International hockey rules do not allow for fighting, however up until recently dropping the gloves was something every major junior player in Canada knew—some were even on the team to do just that. During the 1986-87 regular season, it was almost expected that there would be a tilt or two whenever two major junior teams took to the ice. For the roster who represented Canada in the 1987 World Junior Championship, they were groomed to be physical.

 “Hockey Canada knew the situation very well. We’d already had two brawls against Switzerland in an exhibition game, and then on New Year’s Day we played the Americans and had a big shindig at centre ice during the warmup,” described Theo Fleury in his book Playing With Fire. “Did anyone from Hockey Canada sit us down and say, ‘Look, boys, this is a sensitive situation. We are concerned. You stand to lose if you fight’? No.”

By the time Fleury and Team Canada took to the ice on January 4, 1987 in the final game of the tournament, taking place in Piestany, Czechoslovakia (now part of Slovakia) his team was assured a medal. At the very least they had earned the bronze. If they beat the Russians, then they would earn the silver. If they managed to score five goals to win that game, then they would get the gold medal.

“I thought that the Canadian players would play hockey the way hockey is supposed to be played and go away if any sticks were up and if anything illegal happened because they had the gold medal in their hands,” shared Norwegian Hans Ronning who was the referee for the game. “They were almost doing that when this incident happened.”

Team Russia was in sixth place in the tournament and even if they beat Team Canada, there was no medal in store for them. The Russians were the most penalize team of the tournament going into that final game. Fleury had contributed two of the four goals Canada already had in the game, which at 13:53 of the middle frame saw the Canadians leading 4-2 when the minor fisticuffs and altercations after the whistles finally reached a boiling point.

Fleury was on the receiving end of a two-handed slash from Pavel Kostichkin who hadn’t appreciated the check from Everett Sanipass that sent him to the ice. Retaliatory responses are nothing new in hockey, but the response to the slash resulted in Sanipass and one of the Russian players throwing down with their gloves on.

Fleury will be the first to admit that he’s no angel, and certainly wasn’t when on the ice. He’d done his best to get under the skin of Russian opponent Valeri Zelepukin, chirping him throughout the game. And so as the fight began, Zelepukin decided he would exact his revenge on Fleury.

“We circled each other, throwing a couple of punches, and then both of us went down punching, and rolling around. We found our feet again and continued just hammering each other,” wrote Fleury. “Zelepukin had me in a bear hug. I managed to break free and look up, and both benches were coming at us. It was like ‘Holy cow, here we go.’”

“They were provoked by the Russians into the fighting and suddenly a Russian guy got out on the ice [from the bench],” said Ronning.

According to The Windsor Star that Russian who left the bench was Evgeny Davydov. Davydov would eventually go on to play in the NHL starting halfway through the 1991-92 season after having played four and a half seasons with CSKA Moskva. He was already playing with the CSKA Moskva when he represented the Soviet Union in Piestany.

And that was all it took. Both benches cleared and everyone grabbed a dance partner while Ronning and his linesmen tried to break up individual fights. However, a Czechoslovakian member of the IIHF officiating group ultimately ordered Ronning and the linesmen to leave the ice. In a further effort to stop the ongoing melee, the lights in the arena were turned off.

The brawl lasted roughly 20 minutes, eventually petering out simple because the players were tired. They grabbed their stuff—still in the darkened arena—and headed to their respective dressing rooms to wait for the game to begin again. The game would not continue.

The IIHF directorate met and eventually president Guenther Sabetzki declared that “the world championship [was] over.” Both teams were ejected from the tournament.

“The Russians have learned their lessons well. They have embraced goonism—the final bit of Canadian hockey heritage that eluded them. And if I know the Soviets they will soon master the art,” wrote Al Halberstadt, a columnist for The Windsor Star. “The new breed of Soviet hockey player could have easily learned his trade at the knee of Dave Schultz or Tiger Williams.”

Team Canada’s head coach, Bert Templeton didn’t really see how his players could have avoided what took place. He was proud of how well his players had represented Canada up to that point in the tournament because they didn’t go into the game as a gold medal contender.

“The Russians were the ones who instigated the whole ordeal. In the end, they were the ones who actually got the most out of it. We’ve been almost cheated out of our medals because they did start it. [Coach Templeton] tried to hold us back on the bench but he can’t hold back 15 guys. By the time we entered the ice, they had four guys already on the ice. Any time you see your players or your family on the ice in danger of getting hurt you want to step in and help them out and that’s what a lot of us tried to do,” stated left winger Scott Metcalfe.

Both teams were allowed to participate during the 1988 tournament, which ironically took place in Moscow. Team Canada would go on to win gold that year, followed by the Soviet Union with the silver and Finland with the bronze.

Additional Sources:

• “Canada, Soviet junior teams ejected from tourney after 20-minute brawl,” The Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa, Ontario), Monday, January 5, 1987, p. A1-A2.
• Al Halberstadt, “No more Comrade Nice Guy,” The Windsor Star (Windsor, Ontario), Monday, January 5, 1987, p. A1.
• “Soviets ambush Canada in hockey war,” The Windsor Star (Windsor, Ontario), Monday, January 5, 1987, p. A1.
• “Juniors denied banquet clearing bench,” Alberni Valley Times (Port Alberni, British Columbia), Monday, January 5, 1987, p. 6.
• Theo Fleury, Playing With Fire (Chicago, Ill.: Triumph Books, 2009), kindle edition