Former longtime Red Wing Brendan Shanahan, an NHL Hall of Famer and current Maple Leafs president, was recently asked in a reader mailbag on The Players’ Tribune about his flying tackle of Colorado Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy during the “Brawl in Hockeytown” on March 26, 1997, at Joe Louis Arena.
“It all happened pretty quickly,” Shanahan wrote. “I was locked up with Adam Foote, and I was watching Darren (McCarty) go after (Claude) Lemieux. And then, all of a sudden, I saw that Roy was skating full speed at Darren. He was gunning it. I managed to shake off Foote, and then I took off.