Brent Johnson and Rick DiPietro Prove That Goalie Fight Is Most Exciting Play in Hockey

BOSTON — Forget the penalty shot. When it comes to the most exciting moment in hockey, the all too rare goalie fight wins that title more decisively than Brent Johnson beat down on Rick DiPietro Wednesday night.

Johnson and DiPietro squared off in the final minutes of Pittsburgh's 3-0 win over the Islanders. And while the fight itself lasted only a few seconds, just long enough for Johnson to land one devastating left, the buzz the bout created is still going strong and won't die out any time soon.

It was the main topic of conversation in both the Boston and Dallas locker rooms after the clubs held their morning skates in preparation of Thursday night's showdown at the Garden, and no one was complaining or bemoaning the barbarity of the exhibition.

The players loved it. Just as the capacity crowd of 18,142 at the CONSOL Energy Center loved watching it live, sending Johnson off to a standing ovation. Everyone around the hockey world seemed to enjoy it, except maybe DiPietro and his teammates.

"Absolutely, the Islanders probably didn't get too much of a kick out of it, but when it's your teammate, yeah, absolutely," Bruins forward Mark Recchi said when asked if he enjoyed watching the fight. "It's a pretty cool thing."

Fighting in general is a divisive issue in hockey, even if the tough guys who do the bulk of the brawling are almost always among the most popular players wherever they play. But a goalie fight is something different. Those bouts rise above any debates about the place of fisticuffs in the game.

Part of reason for the excitement a goalie fight generates is the rarity of seeing two netminders going at it, at least in this day and age. Wednesday's bout was the first regular-season NHL fight between goalies since Ottawa's Ray Emery battled Buffalo's Martin Biron back on Feb. 22, 2007. That was just the undercard, as Emery then fought Sabres heavyweight Andrew Peters in the same brawl. Of course, Emery, who used to adorn his masks with portraits of boxing greats, was never shy about getting involved, as he also had five fights in the OHL and six in the AHL in making his way up to the NHL.

But Emery is a unique case, as the fact that the league has gone nearly four years between goalie fights shows. And seeing such showdowns so seldom is part of what makes them special. 

"It's because of the position I guess," Bruins goalie Tim Thomas said. "I think it's the rarity of it that gets the crowd fired up when it happens.

"I saw IHL games where goalies got in fights when I was a kid, but that wasn't very often either, even back then," added Thomas, who has never been in one himself.

Part of the excitement stems from the pure spectacle of two guys in all that equipment desperately trying to get at each other. That can lead to some comical sights, none better that a 2001 brawl between one-time Bruin Felix Potvin, then with Los Angeles, and Ottawa's Jani Hurme.

Hurme couldn't get his catching glove off in the fight, so he dragged Potvin over to the Senators bench and reached out for several of his teammates to untie the glove, then resumed the battle without missing a beat.

And part of exhilaration of a goalie fight is the anticipation that builds as two guys from opposite ends of the rink slowly skate toward one another, discard as much of that protective equipment as possible and finally come together to exchange blows.

"It's fun to see two goalies go at it," Bruins defenseman Dennis Seidenberg said. "I don't really care who it is, it's just good to see something different and it's fun for a short while. It's fun to watch. I don't know how it even comes to that, because you have to go all the way across [the ice] and meet each other at some point, so for something like that to happen something really out of the ordinary has to take place."

Seeing your goalie get involved like that can also have an impact on the team's success. Much like a brawl or fight-filled game can bring a team together, seeing your netminder step out of his usual role and trade punches with his counterpart can inspire the rest of the squad, at least if it's done for the right reasons.

"They can," Thomas said. "If you're responding [to a cheap shot], sticking up for each other, then it can be a team-building thing. If everybody pulls together to stand up for each other, that can be helpful."

And it certainly can be entertaining. Goalie fights don't need to be a nightly occurrence. Much of their charm comes from how rare they are. But we don't need to go four years between netminder throwdowns either, and we certainly can do without referees trying to stop the few ones we do get to see as Rob Martell attempted to do on Wednesday.

Fortunately, Johnson sidestepped him as easily as he got his left free of DiPietro's grasp. For that, fans everywhere can be thankful, as he turned the end of another ordinary midseason matchup into the most exciting moment in hockey.   

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