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“The Battle of Quebec had erupted into a mini-war,” wrote one Gazette reporter of the events at the end of the second period of the playoff game between the Montreal Canadiens and Quebec Nordiques on April 20, 1984. The two bench-clearing brawls between the Quebec-province teams came to be known as the Good Friday Massacre. Another reporter summarized, “The Nordiques may have won the battle of Quebec, but by the time the war had ended, the Canadiens had extracted unconditional surrender.” After all the fighting, the Canadiens had an epic come-back to eliminate the Nordiques and advance to the next playoff round.

The rivalry that began with the Nordiques merging into the NHL in 1979 became more bitter as of 1981, when they landed in the same division. In 1983-84, they finished the regular season third and fourth in the Adams Division as the Nordiques had accumulated 94 points and the Canadiens just 75. Still they both managed to beat the top two teams in the division during the semi-finals.

Going into Game 6 of their division finals, Montreal led 3-2. A crowd of 18,090 packed the Forum to see if the Habs would advance or if the Nordiques would force a Game 7. It looked like Quebec might pull it off as star Peter Stastny scored in the first period and had the only goal in the first two-thirds of the game.

Hockey turned into boxing as the buzzer signaled the end of the second period. During the final seven seconds, Dale Hunter had leaned heavily on the back of Habs’ Guy Carbonneau in an effort to push him away from the Nordiques’ net. As they fell to the ice with Hunter laying atop Carbonneau, the fists began flying.

Montreal’s Chris Nilan “leaped on [Randy] Moller and cut him badly with a series of punches.” Meanwhile, his teammate Mario Tremblay “flailed away” at Stastny, breaking his nose. As the benches cleared, even the backup goalies, Montreal’s Richard Sevigny and Quebec’s Clint Malarchuk, took each other on in one of the many individual fights across the rink.

The brawl ended with a knock-out punch. Along the boards, Louis Sleigher and Jean Hamel were grappling with linesman John D’Amico trying to separate them. Sleigher “reached over a linesman’s shoulder and caught Hamel with a numbing sucker punch which left Hamel inert on the ice.” Habs defenseman Larry Robinson said of Sleigher, “It was a cheap sucker shot, that’s all he’s good for. … There’s no room in the league for guys who can only hit you from behind.” With Hamel requiring medical assistance, the players finally had a cease fire and eventually left the ice. As the Gazette pointed out, “It was a desperately ugly finish to a high and soaring period.”

The teams were given extra time to cool down while the officials sorted out the various penalties. They decided on game misconducts for Sleigher, Stastny, Nilan, and Tremblay, and Hunter received two roughing minors. However, before they could relay this information, the players had already been allowed to return. “It was a mistake. The teams were on the ice before they should have been,” explained Supervisor of Officials John McCauley. “Everyone’s to blame. The referee, the minor officials. But in fairness to people in this room, they weren’t told that the teams had gone back out.”

As soon as the extent of the penalties became clear, “those who’d been ejected felt they had nothing else to lose and tried to exact retribution.” After Nilan went after Moller, the latter asked, “Why was he allowed onto the ice at the start of the third?” Per the Gazette, “As a result, all hell broke loose again.” Before they even got around to dropping the puck, the Canadiens went after Sleigher for hurting Hamel. The first one to take him on was Dale Hunter’s brother, Mark, and he was followed by Mike McPhee as clashes erupted everywhere again.

Having set the first round in motion, Dale Hunter was the other top target for Montreal. His own brother came after him twice. Mark said later, “It was just on the spur of the moment. Dale and I are very close and there won’t be any hard feelings at all. He has to play that way to be his best. And I have to play my game too, eh.” In addition to Mark, goalie Sevigny also went after Dale, despite fellow-goalie trying to warn him off. Malarchuk remarked, “Obviously, he (Sevigny) was willing to get the crap kicked out of him just to get Dale out of the game.” From Dale’s point of view, “According to the ref I should have been thrown out of the game. … All I know is that Sevigny came after me twice. And I wanted nothing to do with him.”

After this second round, the referees ejected both Hunter brothers, both backup goalies, Moller, McPhee, and recent Quebec call-up Wally Weir. All told, 11 players were tossed, the Nordiques had 134 penalty minutes, and the Habs had 118. The grand total of 252 minutes was just 15 short of the playoff record set by the Rangers and Kings in 1981.

The Nordiques were furious that three of their top players were out while, in their view, the Canadiens only had to do without their fourth-line. Coach Michel Bergeron accused Montreal Coach Jacques Lemaire of basically setting up a hit to take Dale Hunter out. “Lemaire has the face of an angel; everybody thinks he’s an angel. But in five years of the rivalry, there’s never been a brawl like this.”

The Canadiens were happier that Stastny was out of their way. Canadiens Managing Director Serge Savard explained, “With him out of the game, we were able to open up for the first time in the series. We had an incredible team effort in the third period … I couldn’t single out one man who was better than another … but having Stastny out helped us. When you open up against that team, a guy like Stastny usually is putting the puck in the other team’s net.” Winger Mats Naslund commented, “That’s the first time I’ve seen a fight really pay off. I don’t know who got him out of the game but whoever it was, it was a smart move.”

Indeed, without these Quebec stars, Montreal came roaring back by scoring five goals in ten minutes. Steve Shutt had the first two that kicked things off. He said, “For the first time I can remember, I had it in my mind where I was going to shoot. And even better, that’s where they went.” Rick Green followed with his only goal of the season since he had been out most of it with injuries. The final score was 5-3.

Unsurprisingly, many did not like the way referee Bruce Hood handled the incidents. Coach Bergeron warned, “If the referees don’t start taking things in hand, there’s going to be worse trouble.” The Gazette’s Michael Farber wrote that Hood “let an already messy situation degenerate into what literally became a battle of brother against brother.” Beleaguered, Hood (who had just refereed his 1,000th game that November) retired at the end of the playoffs.

For the next round, Montreal faced the New York Islanders, who had just come off their four consecutive Stanley Cup championships. As expected, they lost 4-2. The Islanders advanced to the Final but lost to the Edmonton Oilers, unable to match the Canadiens’ record of five consecutive championships.

Still, the Good Friday Massacre left some with a bad taste. Farber thoroughly expressed his disappointment in both teams: “Shame on you, Montreal Canadiens. You were a disgrace to the uniform. Shame on you Quebec Nordiques. After spending the last two years trying to polish your image, you helped turn a playoff game into what would be mere burlesque if the fights weren’t premeditated.”

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