Goalies Gone Wild.

One of my favorite things about hockey is when a goalie loses his mind and either throw's a tantrum or fights with players (especially other goalie's). If you had been watching SportsCenter or PTI the other day, you probably saw AHL goalie Tuukka Rask of the Providence Bruins go nuts after losing a shootout to the Albany River Rats. Now whether or not you think it was warranted (he did poke the puck away on the 1st attempt), it's always enjoyable to watch a goalie completely lose his mind during and after a game. Though nowhere near as crazy as Rask's tirade, Marty Gerber of the Maple Leafs got ejected last night after bumping the ref and firing a puck at him (not shown in the video). But this got me to thinking, what are the best instances of goalies gone wild?


Since I'm not ranking in any particular order, let's start with Gerber's backup, Curtis Joseph who back in the 2000 playoffs came charging at the ref and bumped him while CuJo fell himself. He also got into a fight many years earlier when he play with the Blues with Red Wings goalie Tim Cheveldae. Goalie fights aren't strange for Red Wings fans as both Mike Vernon and Chris Osgood fought Patrick Roy during the height of the Wings-Avs rivalry in 97 and 98. Let me also take this time to honor the 12 year anniversary of the Brawl in Hockeytown, where Darren McCarty gave Claude Lemieux what he had coming, forcing him to turtle, not to mention the Roy-Vernon fight. The most interesting thing about this rivalry is that they had brawls or mini-brawls on 3/26/97, 4/1/98 and 3/23/02, all around the same time and all turned out to motivate the Wings to win Stanley Cups. Perhaps the Rangers will win the Stanley Cup after the 2/28 game against the Avs turned into this.


I wanted to give credit to Ed Belfour who back in 1993 had a mini-tirade after the Hawks lost to St. Louis in the Norris Semis. Could of been worse, but swinging a stick can always be dangerous. Belfour is no stranger to momentary lapses off judgment as he once took a swing at Bob Probert and gave Martin Lapointe a cringing slash (JD's reaction sums it up), plus he started a brawl with the Sharks in the 1998 playoffs. Belfour is kind of similar to Ron Hextall, a man you can write a book on crazy goalies using him alone. He jumped Chris Chelios in the closing minutes of Game 6 in the 1989 Wales Final against Montreal, fighting Felix Potvin, taking a run at Rob Brown in a drubbing against the Pens, slashing Kent Nilsson in the 87 Cup Finals among his most famous incidents. He had over 100 penalty minutes in his 1st three seasons, I mean a GOALIE with 100 PIM'S. Who does that?

Ray Emery was working on a career like Hextall's when he began in Ottawa. He started getting in fights in the AHL when he fought Josh Gratton. He will always be famous for his role in a brawl against the Sabres back in February 2007 when he fought both Marty Biron and Andrew Peters. He also got into an altercation with one of his trainers in the KHL, because he refused to wear a sponsors hat.

There are plenty of other times that goalies have gone wild, they all can't be written today because it would take too long, be too long and you need more time to watch the videos. But I think we should thank Rask for having a noteworthy tantrum, giving us a chance to relive the best of irrational behavior by the goalie.