Helene St. James

Detroit Free Press

Kris Draper was in his Miami hotel lobby when he saw his wife do a double-take.

Suddenly, there was Claude Lemieux coming toward them.

For the first time in 19 years, Draper and Lemieux had a conversation. Not once did either mention the infamous hit in 1996 that ignited one of the greatest rivalries in hockey.

The Detroit Red Wings and Colorado Avalanche meet Saturday for an outdoor game at Coors Field in Denver. The far more intriguing event comes Friday, when the franchises put on an alumni game that will feature star-studded rosters of middle-aged men who two decades earlier were part of an intense, bloody clash. Draper and Lemieux will face each other again.

“I would say it’s one of the best rivalries,” former Wings forward Igor Larionov said. “To have the magnitude of Detroit-Colorado games back in the day, that was crazy. All the media, all the fans, and the style of the game, too. Referees kind of forgot the whistles. They let us go to war.”

The conflict was sparked during Game 6 of the 1996 Western Conference finals, when Lemieux hit Draper from behind, smashing Draper’s face into the boards and leaving him with a broken jaw and shattered orbital bone.

The next season, Lemieux was injured the first two times the Wings and Avalanche played one another. He played in the third game, March 16 in Colorado.

Ten days later, the teams met for the last time in the regular season at Joe Louis Arena. The Wings were smarting having lost the first three games to the defending Stanley Cup champions.

“It was the last game before the playoffs,” Larionov said. “It was crucial game for us to overcome hump and send message we are not soft.”

The message became part of hockey lore.

The main event happened late in the first period, shortly after a collision between Larionov and Avalanche forward Peter Forsberg.

Darren McCarty, the Wings’ enforcer and one of Draper’s close friends, eyed Lemieux and laid into him with a right hook. Lemieux didn’t fight back. He just dropped to the ice and turtled, content to let officials drag McCarty away.

After that, it was pandemonium.

Colorado goaltender Patrick Roy skated out from his net only to be intercepted by Wings forward Brendan Shanahan. Shanahan ended up fighting Colorado defenseman Adam Foote. Roy and Detroit goaltender Mike Vernon fought. So did Detroit defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov and Avalanche forward Adam Deadmarsh.

It was 5-5 after regulation. As if scripted by Hollywood, McCarty scored in overtime. By the time it was over, officials had handed out 18 major penalties for fighting among 144 total penalty minutes.

“No one was exempt from getting into the physical altercations,” said Kirk Maltby, then a Wings forward, now a Wings scout. “Peter and Igor were the two culprits that ignited the flame in the notorious McCarty-Lemieux line brawl. That’s what made it special. Everyone was all on board. Whether it was something you didn’t normally do, you were asked to go out and leave it on the line and pull for each other.

“After that game, we knew we could beat them.”

The Wings beat the Avalanche in a six-game series in the Western Conference finals. During Game 4, Colorado coach Marc Crawford became so incensed after more brawls broke out that he screamed obscenities at Wings coach Scotty Bowman, enough so that the NHL fined Crawford $10,000 for his histrionics. One series later, the Wings won their first Stanley Cup in 42 years.

The rivalry was renewed the following season when Lemieux fought McCarty during a November game at the Joe. In April, again at the Joe, Chris Osgood fought Roy. Dominik Hasek attempted to become the third Wings goaltender to fight Roy on March 23, 2002, but officials separated the two. The Wings again went on to beat the Avalanche in the playoffs, capping a seven-game conference final with a 7-0 victory. They met again in the playoffs in 2008, when the Wings swept the Avalanche in the second round.

As the major players involved aged and retired, hostility ebbed. These days, players’ children feed the rivalry with nostalgia. Draper recently watched the March 26, 1997, game with his 14-year-old son, Kienan. As the first period went on, Draper smiled. There was McCarty grabbing Lemieux, there was Lemieux folded up on the ice, there was Roy coming into the frame.

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“I’m going, ‘Kienan, Shanny is coming into the screen any time now,’ ” Draper said. “Then Vernie and Roy, Shanny and Foote.’

“I don’t know why it was that night. I’m glad it happened at Joe Louis Arena, glad for our fans. It was something they’ll never forget. That night, that game, it meant a lot to everybody. We needed that win. And how we got it was a huge part of our success going forward. It was a defining moment for our hockey team.”

Draper spent six weeks with his jaw wired shut after undergoing reconstructive surgery. He had to carry wire cutters in case of emergency. He dropped 20 pounds. He admits he sometimes wishes he had hit Lemieux himself.

Lemieux never apologized for the hit. Draper doesn’t believe he was sorry for it. Their meeting last June in Miami, 19 years later, threw the Draper family. Julie, Draper’s wife, wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Lemieux talked to her as if there was no history. He asked Kienan if he played hockey. He complimented Draper’s daughters, Kennedi and Kamryn.

Finally he and Draper talked, briefly. The only topic was Joren van Pottelberghe, the Swiss goaltender the Wings had just selected during the draft held at the home of the Florida Panthers. Lemieux turned out to be Van Pottelberghe’s agent. Draper is now the special assistant to Wings general manager Ken Holland.

“It was weird,” Draper said. “My wife and kids, they obviously know everything about it, and they weren’t quite sure. My son was just looking. His eyes were bugging out. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Julie wasn’t quite sure. She went through the whole process with me. We sat there and talked. He said it was great meeting everybody. He walked away, and I was just like, ‘Wow.’

“It was probably a 4- to 5-minute conversation. Nothing was mentioned about the game, the hit, the rivalry. It was just basically an agent talking to someone in management. And that was it. That’s the extent of the interaction that I’ve had with him.”

Draper long since has moved on from the hit. Like his fellow former teammates, what he cherishes are the memories from a rivalry for the ages.

Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.

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A rivalry renewed ... outdoors

Alumni Game

When: 7 p.m. Friday.

Where: Coors Field, Denver.

TV: FSD, NHL Network.

Among the alums to appear: Colorado: Rob Blake, Ray Bourque, Peter Forsberg, Claude Lemieux, Patrick Roy, Joe Sakic. Detroit: Chris Chelios, Dino Ciccarelli, Kris Draper, Igor Larionov, Nicklas Lidstrom, Darren McCarty, Steve Yzerman.

Avs. vs. Red Wings

When: 8 p.m. Saturday.

Where: Coors Field, Denver.

TV: NBC Sports Network.

A feud to remember

The Red Wings and Avalanche faced each other in the Western Conference playoffs five times over seven seasons in the late 1990s and early 2000s:

1996

Avalanche 4,

Red Wings 2

The Wings lost the first two games of the Western Conference finals at Joe Louis Arena while scoring just two goals on Patrick Roy, who had been acquired by Colorado in midseason.

1997

Red Wings 4,

Avalanche 2

The rematch in the Western finals went the Wings’ way this time, even though they lost the opener on the road. Mike Vernon allowed just four goals in the Wings’ four victories.

1999

Avalanche 4,

Red Wings 2

This time, the franchises met in the second round. The Wings looked to be on their way to an easy series win after winning the first two on the road but then lost four straight.

2000

Avalanche 4,

Red Wings 1

Roy set the tone in the Western semis opener with a 2-0 shutout. Chris Drury’s game-winner 10 minutes into overtime in Game 4 dashed the Wings’ hopes of tying the series.

2002

Red Wings 4,

Avalanche 3

The Avs built a 3-2 lead in the Western finals as three of the first five went to OT. But Dominik Hasek didn’t allow a goal in the last two, and the Wings chased Roy with six goals in Game 7.