Rink rat-Canuck net tug of war - OT crossbar goal. It was crazy !
The Canucks-Oilers game I attended back in 1987 had to go down as the most bizarre ending in Canucks history as far as regular season goes.
In 1987 the Canucks were at one of their all time historical lows, but as a pure hockey fan you went to see the great Oilers machine, with Gretzky, Kurri, Messier, Anderson etc. What I didn't expect was the Canucks giving them some serious game and taking it to OT.
Overtime was an experiment for a few years back then and with 5 on 5 it usually ended in ties as far as I recall. That's when it got real crazy.
A couple minutes into OT, Esa Tikkanen's shot clearly hit the crossbar as you could hear the clank all the way down to our end of the rink.
Suddenly the goal light goes on and the reff signals GOAL ! Like what the hell ??? The fans begin to go nuts throwing stuff on the ice. The Oilers celebrate, then leave the ice.
The crowd is going completely ballistic ! Remember there was no live TV coverage of this mid-week game back then, just radio with Jim Robson,(but there were Sports Page highlights, but not the ones we wanted to see).
The reff and linesmen converged for what seemed like 10 minutes or more. A reff overturning a call long after the opponent had left the ice was unheard of back then.
Then it got crazier ! From our end of the rink, the ice attendant opens the gate and sends some poor teenage rink rat out there to take the Canucks net off the ice, while the Canucks argued with the reff and the crowd ready to riot! As a zamboni driver at the time, I'm freaking out at this guy for sending this kid into a shit storm !
The poor kid wanders into the melee and pulls the Canucks net off the pipes and begins to slide it down to our end of the ice. At center ice , a Canuck who I'm 99% sure was big Jim Sandlak ,skates over and gets in a tug of war with this kid with the net ! It was nuts ! The crowd is booing like crazy even louder !
Of course Sandlak won the tug of war and pushes the net back to the Canucks end. The crowd of course goes nuts cheering !
This poor kid who is probably to this day haunted from being put in this brutal position slides his way back to our end as boos rain down on him.
Then suddenly the reff signals NO GOAL ! The crowd freaks out cheering of course. Meanwhile the Oilers were half undressed and ordered back on the ice to finish OT which took another 10 minutes or more. Of course they were booed like crazy.
The OT was played out and no one scored ending in a 4-4 tie.
Canucks fans clearly were happy with the tie. Watching Sports Page highlights back at the hotel you saw Tikkanen's shot clearly hit the crossbar square on. How this was even called a goal was outrageous by both goal judge and reff.
Here's a link to the box score. I now recall Canucks had to kill a penalty off as well in OT which may have been when Tikkanen's non-goal happened.
There you have it ! Tell me your crazy ending game stories ! I'd love to hear them.
Thanks for reading !
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