Paul Stewart: If You Want to Last, You Can't Take the Friction of the Game Personally

Thanks for the stories!

It says a lot that my favorites highlights of Claude the Fraud are Neely trying to pile drive him into the boards and McCarty beating him in front of the Detroit bench.

The trouble with Claude is that he could really fight if he wanted to. But for some silly reason, he chose to act the fool. I remember when he was with Montreal and lay on the ice like he was seriously hurt, which he'd done other times. His coach, Pat Burns must have had enough, because he wouldn't send the trainer out to him. He just let him lay there, till finally Lemieux got up and skated to the bench.
And Paul, what happened in that parking lot to settle the score. Did Jodzio even show up?

It says a lot that my favorites highlights of Claude the Fraud are Neely trying to pile drive him into the boards and McCarty beating him in front of the Detroit bench.
- OrrFour

Ah yes. March 26,1997. Red Wings fans know it well. The infamous Brawl in Hockeytown. McCarty pummeling Turtle Claude. ☺ Hate to say it but that ol' Clod was money in the playoffs. Even though he was a gutless diseased rat.

The trouble with Claude is that he could really fight if he wanted to. But for some silly reason, he chose to act the fool. I remember when he was with Montreal and lay on the ice like he was seriously hurt, which he'd done other times. His coach, Pat Burns must have had enough, because he wouldn't send the trainer out to him. He just let him lay there, till finally Lemieux got up and skated to the bench.
And Paul, what happened in that parking lot to settle the score. Did Jodzio even show up?
- Wingsfan61

I was curious about that also. Excerpt from an interview with Rick Jodzio i found at https://thefangrave.wordp...ockey-fight-legends-lore/

HAMMER: One of our members told us that Paul Stewart claimed that you kneed him in the face and that after the game you were involved in a fight outside of the arena. Any truth to this?
JODZIO: I didn’t think i kneed him. This was the year after the Tardif brawl. Baxter was on the Nordiques and we were playing in the minors. I’m playing against, i think, Birmingham, and Stewart was bugging me all game. So finally i had enough. I can’t recall a knee but i won’t deny it. So after i’m leaving the rink and there’s a semi-circle of guys milling around from the other team. There’s a guy on their team named Larry Maverty that i knew from the WHA. He said, “Rick you might wanna keep your head up, they’re gonna surround you here.” That gave me a 5 second warning. There’s just me and 1 other teammate. There’s about 10 or 15 of them. So i said “You know guys i’m not fighting everyone so why don’t you pick one guy.” They did but it wasn’t Stewart. If i was classified as a good fighter on the ice, well i was a better fighter off it. So who ever came up to me got lefts and rights and the fight lasted about 5 punches. That fights over. Then the rest started closing in. Meanwhile we’re trying to get help from our dressing room. Now there’s 3 or 4 of us fighting 7 or 8 of them. I did very well with the first guy i fought but i took a couple after that. When i looked in the mirror i had a shiner. I think my manager wanted to sue for assault. The fight did make the local papers.

What I want to know is did Don Koharski hold a grudge against the Devils after the famous 'have another donut' incident? Sure seemed like a lot of officials were angry about that.