A ‘Punch-Up in Piestany’ Redux in Buffalo?

↵Just last week, I wrote about how the NHL needs to say goodbye to playing in the Winter Olympics, and instead cancel the World Juniors once every four years and send those passionate kids to play for an Olympic Gold Medal. As it turns out, we’ll have another chance to see that tournament in the USA, as the IIHF announced that Buffalo will host the 2011 World Junior Championship.↵

↵↵Just how passionate do those kids get? The object lesson in exciting moments came during the 1987 tournament in Piestany during the Cold War in what is now Slovakia. On the last day of the tournament, Canada was playing Russia. While the Russians had already been eliminated, a win by five goals or more meant gold for Canada. Here’s what happened next, with the Canadians leading 4-2:↵

↵↵⇥In the final game of the 1987 World Junior Hockey Championships, punches are thrown between a Canadian and a Soviet player. Suddenly it’s a free-for-all as both teams bolt from the bench to enter the fray, launching a 20-minute tussle that continues even when desperate arena officials turn out the lights.↵↵After it was all over, tournament officials declared that both teams would be disqualified and barred from attending the post-tournament banquet. ↵

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↵Now known as the “Punch-up in Piestany,” the incident will be remembered forever thanks to the fact that a number of future NHL players participated, including Sergei Fedorov, Alexander Mogilny, Brendan Shanahan and Theo Fleury.↵