Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

McCarty to host Red Wings-Avalanche “Bloody Wednesday” viewing party

McCarty 2

Give the Detroit Red Wings credit -- they’re presenting fans the opportunity to watch hockey.

On Wednesday at Detroit’s PB’s Sports Grille, former Wings tough guy Darren McCarty and current play-by-play man Ken Kal will host a viewing party where folks can watch the infamous “Bloody Wednesday” (or, “Fight Night at the Joe”) 1997 regular season game between the Wings and Avs.

The game occurred on Wednesday, Mar. 26, roughly 10 months after Colorado forward Claude Lemieux did this to Detroit’s Kris Draper in the ’96 Western Conference final:

Draper suffered a broken jaw, shattered cheek and orbital bone which required reconstructive surgery -- his jaw also ended up being wired shut.

Lemieux received a two-game suspension for the hit, returning to the lineup for Colorado’s eventual Stanley Cup victory.

Following the incident, Colorado and Detroit met three times during the 1996-97 regular season before the infamous March affair, which went a little something like this:

The game was arguably McCarty’s defining moment in a Wings uniform (the argument, of course, is this goal.)

In addition to administering the frontier justice Kal later called “the turning point” of Detroit’s season, McCarty also scored the OT winner on Patrick Roy.

All told, the Red Wings and Avalanche combined to produce nine fights, 11 goals and record 148 penalty minutes in the game.

Fore more info on the viewing party, click here.