Article content material
Within the days of yore, NHL groups would add the largest, hardest guys they may discover to coaching camp rosters simply to have them make a multitude.
Article content material
Bear in mind Hyperlink Gaetz, as an illustration? The Vancouver Canucks had the notorious enforcer — nicknamed The Lacking Hyperlink — at their 1995 coaching camp in Whistler. Notionally, Gaetz was there to make the group, however the odds are good that he was simply there to trigger a ruckus.
Article content material
In his first coaching camp in 1978, rookie Stan Smyl put Harold Snepsts into the top board with a thundering verify. All eyes shortly landed on large, powerful Randy Holt, who as soon as recorded 411 penalty minutes in a single minor-league season with the Dallas Black Hawks.
Holt was skating as Snepsts’ defence companion and skated over to problem the feisty younger Smyl, who had been MVP on the Memorial Cup the spring earlier than. However on this case, Snepsts waved Holt off; not this time, he mentioned. He’d put himself in that spot, he mentioned.
That is all to say that when upon a time, fights occurred in coaching camp.
Article content material
They occurred quite a bit.
And so though Conor Garland and Dakota Joshua getting in one another’s faces on Saturday could pale in historic comparability, the actual fact it doesn’t occur a lot anymore means two teammates getting feisty with each other nonetheless stands out.