Canada vs. Soviet Union, 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championship / 1980s
On January 4, 1987, a Canada–Soviet Union game at the World Junior Ice Hockey Championship in Piešťany, Czechoslovakia, became one of the most notorious brawls in hockey history. The Cold War rivalry between the two nations was already intensely personal: Canada had long accused the Soviet program of disguising professional-level athletes as amateurs, while the Soviets had dominated international hockey. The stakes were especially high for Canada. A victory by five goals or more would have guaranteed the gold medal, while the Soviets had already been eliminated from medal contention. The International Ice Hockey Federation had assigned Norway's inexperienced referee Hans Rønning because he was considered neutral, but his failure to penalize repeated slashes, elbows, and cross-checks allowed the hostility to build. Earlier in the tournament, Rønning had also randomly ejected Canadian captain Steve Chiasson after a pregame warm-up brawl with the United States, further damaging Canadian confidence in his judgment.
The violence began almost immediately. Sergei Shesterikov elbowed Canada's Dave McLlwain off the opening face-off, and McLlwain answered with a cross-check; neither player was penalized. After Canada took a 3–1 first-period lead, Theoren Fleury celebrated by sliding across center ice and miming a machine gun firing at the Soviet bench, an act Canadian Amateur Hockey Association president Murray Costello condemned as needlessly inflammatory. Canada led 4–2 in the second period when Shesterikov collided with Everett Sanipass and began fighting him. Pavel Kostichkin then delivered a two-handed slash at Fleury, triggering another fight. Soviet forward Evgeny Davydov was the first player to leave his bench, and soon every skater from both teams joined the melee. Mike Keane fought Valeri Zelepukin, Vladimir Konstantinov head-butted Greg Hawgood and broke his nose, and Stéphane Roy was attacked by two Soviet players. At least a dozen separate fights spread across the ice. The officials abandoned the rink, and tournament administrators switched off the arena lights in a desperate attempt to stop the 20-minute riot while fans shouted, 'We want hockey.'
The IIHF declared the game null and void and held an emergency vote chaired by president Günther Sabetzki. By a 7–1 decision, with only Canada's Dennis McDonald dissenting, both teams were expelled from the tournament. Because the standings involving Canada and the Soviet Union were voided while other teams retained points earned against them, Canada lost a medal it might have won, potentially even gold. Canadian players were ordered out of the arena and escorted across the Czechoslovak border by armed soldiers. Initially, the IIHF suspended all participating players for 18 months and all coaches for three years; the player bans were later reduced to six months on appeal, allowing several stars to return for the 1988 tournament. Canada won gold in Moscow in 1988 and the Soviet Union took silver. The incident also transformed the World Junior Championship's profile in Canada and helped make it a major annual sporting event. Many participants later became NHL stars, including Theoren Fleury, Brendan Shanahan, Luke Richardson, Pierre Turgeon, Glen Wesley, Sergei Fedorov, Vladimir Konstantinov, and Alexander Mogilny. The episode remains controversial because both sides blamed the other—Canadian commentators even suggested the Soviet team may have deliberately provoked the fight to eliminate Canada—but the brawl itself, the expulsions, and the suspensions are firmly documented.
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