The top 5 goalie fights of all time

Hockey fans love their goalie fights. Something about the combination of gigantic equipment and actual animosity makes them feel like something out of a cartoon. It’s sumo-suit wrestling, if the people in sumo suits were taking it seriously. How great is that?

Yesterday I stumbled across “14 minutes of pissed off goaltenders,” and it entertained me for 28 minutes of so.

So, along those lines, I thought it’d be good to rank the five best goalie fights of all time.

Top 5 goalie fights

No. 5

Ray Emery vs. Marty Biron

Emery/Biron makes the list as a sort of honorable mention, because any goalie fight list without Ray Emery is doin’ it wrong. He’s an actual trained boxer, and loves this stuff.

The highlight: Emery’s smile. If Happy Gilmore’s happy place involved a hot chick and some beer, Ray Emery’s involves him getting to punch people.

No. 4

Patrick Roy vs. Mike Vernon

Roy’s first appearance on this list comes against Mike Vernon. Watching this fight makes me really miss the Avs/Red Wings rivalry days. I really think in my hockey watching lifetime there hasn’t been a better one.

The commentators comments about the line brawl kill me: “That’s what had to happen!”

Oh, absolutely, I guess.

No. 3

Garth Snow vs. Steve Shields 

Much like the Emery submission, no list would be complete without Garth Snow.

There’s no denying that this video is made 100 times better by Rick “Jim Ross” Jeanneret. Few men in sports can hype up an event like that guy.

No. 2

Patrick Roy vs. Chris Osgood

Annnd, back to Roy, this time against Osgood.

It’s a funny thing about Roy – as much as his temper is famous and as much as he liked fighting, he really wasn’t that great at it.

And finally…

No. 1

Ron Hextall vs. Felix Potvin

Hextall/Potvin takes number one because Hextall was such a maniac, yet Felix Potvin both accepts the tilt, and bloodies him. I like the lack of regard for defense. Just PUNCH, baby. Just punch.

Goalie fights are entirely pointless, they don’t prove anything, and there’s no real reason to believe the two men who stand 190 feet apart even dislike each other. BUT, they’re among the most entertaining things that can happen in a hockey game, so I kinda love them. Congrats to everyone on the list for being complete psychopaths.