A Trip Down Memory Lane: Fight Night

BY MELISSA ZIELINSKI

While interning for the Washington Capitals the month or so after free agency opened up and after development camp came to a close it was hard to find a story of relevance. Who’s really thinking about hockey when it’s over 100 degree in the District? That’s when I came up with the brilliant idea to right a weekly feature with the title “This Week in Caps History.”

My days at the Caps have ended, but I still have hockey on the mind. Since a chance of a lockout is ever increasing I decided to stay positive and do my own take on the Caps’ feature I created, but with my own twist, I’ll call it “A Trip Down Memory Lane.”

For my first trip down “memory lane,” I’ll set the Scene:

It’s late March in Rochester, New York and the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League (AHL) have a game. To paint a vivid picture it’s bitter and freezing. My nine year-old self is bundled up and hand-in-hand with my dad as I walk across the bridge that overlooks the Genessee River, creating blustery cold air that hits my face.

Now that you are shivering as you read, here’s the important part – the game.

Tonight the Americans are hosting the Hamilton Bulldogs, which always guarantees a game to watch. As it’s hard to bring up archives from the seasons in the late ‘90’s a lot of today’s blog is by memory, but don’t worry, no matter the age I always have a keen memory of my Amerks.

It seemed from the moment that the Bulldogs and Amerks took the opening faceoff, gloves were on the ice.

And the fighting went on and on.

To be honest, I don’t remember who even won the game and I don’t think either team cared either.

On the ride home, all I could remember about the broadcast was that Rochester’s radio play-by-play  broadcaster, Don Stevens, kept repeating himself. “Man oh Man,” he’d say, when he’d play back the tap of the game that was now in the books.

The “Penalty box” show host, Craig Schailler, echoed those words too.

Now for a little history.

When I decided to revisit this game from March 22^nd of Rochester’s 1997-98 season I looked at some names and found one in particular that struck me…Dennis Bonvie.

Bonvie is what you call a career AHL-er. He saw just less than 95 games of National Hockey League action and 871 games in the AHL in what was more than a 15-year career.  With that though came more than 4,804 penalty minutes (PIM) from both the AHL and NHL.

During the 1997-98 season, Bonvie set the record for PIMs and this game helped him reach that milestone.

That night Bonvie decided to duel with Rochester’s Peter Vandermeer. The two went gloves off for a minute before any referee even broke it up (ah, the good old days where players could really go at it).

Before the night’s end there was a handful of other fights and roughing penalties dealt to Hamilton and Rochester and combined both teams walked away with 359 PIMs.

Now I don’t know if you’d necessarily call that game a hockey game, but it is one that I’ll never forget. My first real fight night.