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Bob Probert

The All-Time Heavyweight Champ

You know the old joke: “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.” I don’t believe in that. This is not a random universe. Fights don’t just break out. Everything happens for a reason, including two guys throwing haymakers, trying to dislodge each other’s Adam’s apples.

The most obvious provocation is when someone on the other team takes a cheap shot at one of your teammates. When a defenseman comes across and takes an open-ice hit on your forward and nails him really hard below the knees, like a kamikaze pilot taking out a battleship — that’s a dirty hit, the kind that helps an orthopedic surgeon buy his third BMW. One minute your leading scorer is making the other goalie piss in his pads, and the next he’s sitting at home on the couch with a blown-out knee, watching Laverne & Shirley reruns. You can’t let them get away with that stuff.

Some nights you can actually feel a fight brewing, almost smell it from the opening face-off. Both teams are running at each other, and it’s just a matter of time before the fists and elbows start flying. You and the opposing player go into the corner together, and you hit him and he falls on his ass — you just know he’s going to come back at you like a rabid dog. Before you know it, you’re in the middle of something.

But a lot of the time, fighting is a true game tactic. I like to think of myself as a complete player — I’m a disciple of the old Gordie Howe be-your-own-enforcer thing — but certain players get labeled as tough guys, and that’s all they get to do. They’re a weapon to get a team back into the game. One team gets down by a couple of goals. The coach has to find a way to spark the team and get the crowd into it. He sends one of his brutes out there and has him challenge somebody to a fight. Before you know it, two guys are in each other’s face: “You wanna go?”

What really happens when the gloves come off? Well, fighting’s changed a lot over the years. When I broke into the league, I didn’t have any strategy. I just did whatever I could to win a fight. I just grabbed on and swung with one hand. I aimed for the head. Crack upside his left ear. Wham. Wham. Sometimes I’d get fancy and switch hands and swing with the other. Crack upside his right ear. Wham. Wham. Wham. That’s what passed for strategy. It wasn’t exactly Ali versus Frazier.

Now the guys are so much smarter, bigger, and stronger, and they actually work on being better fighters. Honest. They’ll wrestle with their teammates after practice, all the better to stay upright while they’re trying to pull the other guy’s jersey over his head. Maybe later on they’ll go to the gym and work out on the heavy bag like they’re Evander Holyfield. Me, I boxed a little last summer, but it was really only for conditioning. After all, in a hockey fight, the first thing you do is throw down your gloves.

Today’s enforcer will even go to the guy in charge of team uniforms for help. Certain guys wear baggy sweaters — kind of a goalie cut — because they feel it gives them an advantage. The theory is that you can still swing even though the guy’s holding on to your jersey. It’s just another attempt to screw with the rules. A couple years ago, the league began to crack down on guys pulling jerseys over other guys’ heads, and now you have to have the jersey tied down — if it comes over your head, you get a game misconduct penalty. The tie-downs took away a big advantage. I used to love it when my jersey came off, pads and all. Then I could swing away and the guy wouldn’t have anything to grab onto.

In the end, winning a fight comes down to the basics. The first is balance. If you want to dish it out, you’ve got to stay on your feet. This isn’t the WWF on Ice — once one guy falls he’s pretty much finished. If both guys have good balance, it’s probably going to be a half-decent fight.

Above all, you’ve gotta be in shape. A hockey fight is one of the toughest things in sports. In a good 30-second fight, the two guys will land more punches than in a 12-rounder on pay-per-view. There are times when I’ve had a fight in the first period of a game, and every inch of my body feels tender, like overripe fruit.

A lot of bruisers out there claim that getting in the first shot is really important. It’s a total myth, I say. I’d rather get in the most punches. Remember, in hockey fights there are no body shots. The decision making is pretty basic: Do I hit him in the mouth? In the nose? Upside his ear? Do I like hitting guys? Let’s just say I like it a lot more than I like getting hit. I don’t worry about anything fancy. I just swing as hard and as fast as I can until the officials break it up.

Guys get hurt during fights, but here’s a reality check: You’re much more likely to get badly injured just playing. Think about it. A 200-pound guy skating 25 mph smashing you into the boards has the potential to do a whole lot more bone-pulverizing damage than the same guy throwing a couple of left hooks with bare knuckles.

If you get cut or you get knocked down during a fight, you’re not going to get rushed to the hospital or anything. Cuts are actually as much a part of hockey as the Canadian national anthem. You’re bleeding like a stuck pig, and the trainers will just steri-strip it on the bench and then stitch it up between periods. Some guys have the area frozen before the stitches, but I just tell ’em to sew me up and get it over with. It’s quicker, there’s no swelling, and, hey, a little pain builds character.

Every now and then, serious injuries do happen in fights. Once in a fight with Todd Ewan, he caught me with a couple of good shots and knocked me out cold. They took me off on a stretcher, the whole bit. Even worse was a couple of years ago: I got in a fight with Sandy McCarthy, and he kept grabbing onto my arm and twisting. Tore the shit out of my rotator cuff. We kept right on fighting, and I even played a couple more games, but when the doctors really checked it out, I had to have surgery, and I was on the shelf for the rest of the season.

For the most part, though, when the scrum’s over, it’s over. No hard feelings. Everyone thinks Tie Domi and I have a blood feud going, but that’s not how I see it. We’ve gone at it plenty, and I’m sure we’ll go at it again, but there’s mutual respect. He’s got a job to do, and he does it well. I can appreciate that, although I appreciate it most when he’s pummeling some other guy.

Probie’s Greatest Fights

The Grudge Match was on Apr. 15, 1998 in a game that pitted Chicago v. Toronto. Tie Domi, perhaps hockey’s most hated enforcer — and Probert’s frequent adversary throughout the ’90s in some of the nastiest fights in hockey history. Probert’s Blackhawk teammate Cam Russell is knocked unconscious and has to be carried out on a stretcher after a fight with Domi.

Picture a Charles Bronson movie on ice. Domi launches a preemptive strike, dropping his gloves and landing a rat-a-tat-tat combination on Probert’s face. The surprise attack only provokes Probert — like poking a bear with a cocktail fork. The enraged winger throws a haymaker at Domi’s head; as Domi tries to retreat, Probie pulls him back by his jersey and uses Domi’s head like a speed bag, landing a near-record 35 punches. Domi’s blood-smeared face looks like he has survived a head-on auto crash. Barely. The Outcome: Probert, by TKO.

The Curly Shuffle was instituted on Apr. 2, 1994 in a game with Calgary while he was at Detroit. Sandy McCarthy, a no-nonsense forward who would tear Probert’s rotator cuff in a fight the next year. In one of his last games as a Red Wing, Probert challenged one of the league’s up-and-coming tough guys behind the net with a vicious elbow that knocks his helmet off.

Looking to make a name for himself by taking over the NHL’s alpha dog, McCarthy dominates the first half-minute, landing two punches for each of Probert’s, pummeling the Red Wing’s face raw and puffy. Probert’s legendary ability to take a punch saves him: He does his best Three Stooges imitation and head-butts McCarthy. Thwok! The Calgary player drops to the ice like overcooked pasta. N’yuk, n’yuk, n’yuk. The Outcome: Probert, by knockout.

The Ice Storm was on Feb. 4, 1994 when Pittsburgh visited Detroit. With enforcer Marty McSorley, the ensuing fisticuffs last longer than most Fox sitcoms — an excruciating one and a half minutes. The pair exchange punches by the dozen.

In the early going, Probert batters McSorley until his face resembles ground chuck. Thirty seconds into the fight, he knocks McSorley to the ice, but the Penguin gamely gets up and takes his medicine for another full minute. When officials try to put an end to what becomes one of the fiercest fights in NHL history, McSorley valiantly growls, “Leave us alone.” Hockey’s answer to the Thrilla in Manila establishes Probert as one of the greatest fighters of all time. The Outcome: Probert, by decision.

The Punch Heard Round the World on Jan. 28, 1991 came on Detroit ice against New Jersey. In a fight during the opening week of the season, Probert slips and the opportunistic Troy Crowder, a young goon, pounces on him before he can get up, bloodying Probert and rendering a rematch inevitable.

Payback time. The first few seconds are close, as both players lose their helmets. Inspired by the crazed Joe Louis Arena crowd, Probert lands one of hockey’s legendary combinations: a right uppercut that staggers Crowder, and another that leaves him squirming on the ground like a squid on calamari night. A humiliated Crowder seeks revenge later by jumping Probert from behind, a pathetic act of reprisal that’s broken up in a few seconds. The good news: They can ice the swelling right away.

Hockey Balboa. . December 1999.

Enforcer: This book may be fiction but the story is amazing. The author makes sure that every encounter on the ice and behind closed doors is explained in pain-staking detail. The hockey jargon is perfect and the author's knowledge of the sport is both impressive and appreciated.

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