by Len Berman
So, get ready for the face-off, the puck is about to drop for some wacky hockey moments.
During a February 2004 NHL hockey game, a major brawl broke out on the ice. And then something happened that you don’t normally see. The two goaltenders—Ty Conklin for the Edmonton Oilers and Pasi Nurminen for the Atlanta Thrashers—wearing their full gear, started fighting with each other, right in the middle of the rink.
Eventually, things settled down. But after the refs handed out penalties Atlanta lost Nurminen for the rest of the game. And since their backup goalie had been injured earlier, Atlanta had to play the last 1:49 without a goalie!
Kind of made it easy for Edmonton to score, don’t you think? In fact, Edmonton did score a goal.
Most hockey fans like to see high-scoring games. Get rid of goalies—that’ll do it!
In January 1996, Todd Bertuzzi was playing left wing for the New York Islanders against the Montreal Canadiens. The puck was loose behind the goal, and as it rolled along the ice, Bertuzzi just picked up the back of the net and let the puck trickle in.
Was it a goal? Well, the puck was in the net… but you have to score a goal from in front of the net. So no, it didn’t count.
A few years later, Bertuzzi was playing for the Vancouver Canucks. In a November 2000 game against the Colorado Rockies he had his stick knocked from his hands by a defenseman. So Todd began to “stickhandle” the puck with his feet. He skated the puck from one foot to the other and then kicked the puck into the goal!
No, that didn’t count either.
When the ref lost sight of the puck during a January 2003 game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Calgary Flames he blew his whistle, stopping play. But where was it? Nowhere on the ice. Turns out it had landed in Shayne Corson’s shorts.
Corson skated around, grabbing between his legs for the puck, but he couldn’t reach it. Finally, the linesman skated over to him, reached into Corson’s shorts from behind and, to the cheers of the crowd, he pulled out the puck!
When the Boston Bruins hosted the Detroit Red Wings on November 10, 1948, the game had to be stopped just nine minutes after it began. The problem was fog!
The inside of the Boston Garden was so humid that a thick fog made it impossible for the players to see. The game was rescheduled for the next day.
During the playoffs, NHL games can’t end in a tie, so the teams have to keep playing until there is a winner. The longest playoff game ever began on March 24, 1936 and ended on the 25th!
The Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Maroons were deadlocked at 0–0 at the end of regulation time. They played one overtime period. Then a second. Then a third. A fourth. A fifth. Finally, at 2:25 am the next day, this marathon game ended when Detroit’s “Mud” Bruneteau scored the game’s only goal in the seventeenth minute of the sixth overtime period after two hours, fifty-six minutes, and thirty seconds of play. That’s almost a triple-header!
The game took five hours and fifty-one minutes from the opening face-off. Detroit goalie Norm Smith turned aside 92 shots, an NHL record for the longest shutout.
How quickly can two teams score hockey goals? On December 19,1987, the St. Louis Blues were visiting the Boston Bruins. Late in the game, Ken Linesman of Boston scored a goal. Just two seconds later, Doug Gilmour scored for St. Louis. Two goals in two seconds. And yes, that’s a record!
On Valentine’s Day 1996, the Indianapolis Ice minor league team decided to have their players wear pink jerseys with nice big hearts on the backs and sleeves. It was a rare Central Hockey League game without a single fight.
Apparently love does conquer all!
In April 1997 the Hartford Whalers were playing the Buffalo Sabres. Keith Primeau played for Hartford, and his younger brother Wayne played for Buffalo. It was the first time they’d shared the ice in the same NHL game. And wouldn’t you know it, during the game the two of them got into an all-out brawl.
My guess is this argument probably began when they were a lot younger.
In November 1990, the Edmonton Oilers were hosting the Vancouver Canucks. At one point a fight broke out involving most of the players on the ice. All except for three Edmonton players. So they just took the puck and passed it down the ice, and Craig Simpson beat the Vancouver goalie for a goal.
Makes it kind of easy when there is no defense!
OVERTIME
Toronto Maple Leaf Gus Bodnar scored a goal fifteen seconds into the first period of his first NHL game, October 30, 1943.
Bill Mosienko of the Chicago Black Hawks scored three goals in just twenty-one seconds against the New York Rangers on March 23,1952. By coincidence, Gus Bodnar, then playing for Chicago, assisted on all three goals.
During his seven seasons from 1955–56 to 1961–62, goalies Glenn Hall played 4,200 minutes—that’s every minute of every game.
When Calgary crushed the San Jose Sharks 13–1 on February 10, 1993, the Flames goalie Jeff Reese had three assists—an NHL record for a goalie.
Theo Fleury got blood on his hockey jersey during a game and the team didn’t have a spare. So Theo put on a fan’s jersey that said FLEURY on the back!
GOLF
Some people say that golf is the hardest individual sport to master. But think about that for a moment. Golf is the only sport where the ball doesn’t move when play begins. And there’s nobody playing defense. Heck, people aren’t allowed to even make noise while you’re playing.
In baseball, a rock-hard ball is coming at your head at 100 miles per hour, fans are shouting obscenities at you, and you’re supposed to be as cool as a cucumber. In golf, it’s as if you’re playing in a library. Golfers have gone nuts if they’ve heard as much as a camera click.
And boy, that ball takes some strange bounces!
I’ve seen a shot bounce off a tree and into the cup for a hole in one. I saw a ball take one bounce and go into a trash can. Balls have even landed in a person’s lap.
One time Tiger Woods was putting and the ball was going right at the hole when it hit a bee that had landed on the green—the ball veered away and missed the cup!
I’ve seen golf balls hit squirrels. I saw one hit a bird in midflight. I’ve also seen a bird swoop down onto the course, pick up a ball in its beak, and drop the ball in a nearby lake.
So let’s “tee it up” and discover some of golf’s funniest bloopers. Laughter is par for this course.
In May 1998, Todd Obuchowski was playing golf at the Beaver Brook Golf Course in Haydenville, Massachusetts. The 116-yard fourth hole at Beaver Brook runs along a highway. Unfortunately, Todd hit his shot directly onto the road.
Fortunately for him, that was where Nancy Bachan was driving her Toyota at about thirty miles per hour. The ball bounced off her car, ricocheted onto the green, and went into the cup for a hole in one!
Unfortunately for Nancy, the dent in her car cost $150 to repair. But fortunately for her, Todd’s amazing shot quickly turned him into a minor celebrity. He appeared on The Tonight Show, where host Jay Leno gave him a check to pay for Nancy’s repairs.
For most golfers, a hole in one is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Not for Jim Cobb. On August 4, 1985, he aced the 167-yard 7th hole at the Meeker Golf Course in Colorado. The next day he did the same thing on the 3rd hole at the nearby Yampa Valley course. And then Cobb did it again—his tee-shot on the 162-yard 9th hole rolled in. That’s three holes in one in just two days!
At the January 2002 South African PGA Championship in Johannesburg, James Kingston teed off on the fifteenth hole. An ace would win him a new Audi, but Kingston’s tee shot was terrible. He hooked it to the left and the ball went straight for the trees. After the ball crashed into some branches it made a hard right turn onto the green… and trickled into the cup for an amazing, car-winning, hole-in-one!
In March 1990, Dale Eggeling was playing on the LPGA tour in Florida. Her tee shot took a big bounce and landed right in the lap of a guy sitting in a golf cart. In golf, the rule is that you have to hit the ball where it lies.
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Dale walked over, found her ball in the guy’s lap and started waving both hands, shouting, “I’m not touching that!”
Luckily for the guy, Eggerling was allowed a free drop without a penalty.
In July 1990, Chi Chi Rodriguez chipped the ball onto the green and a dog ran up, took the ball in his mouth, and ran off.
How do you score it? A birdie? An eagle? No, a beagle
Actually, Chi Chi got a free drop on the green.
In April 1997, Scott Hoch was putting on the eighteenth green during the Players Championship in Florida. After he hit the ball a fan ran right through the green between Hoch and his rolling ball—without affecting the putt—then dove into the pond next to the green.
Said one TV commentator. “Why is it you can never find a good alligator when you need one!”
In November 2002, golfer Eduardo Romero was playing in the Warburg Cup on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. On the seventh hole, his approach shot landed on the green about twenty feet from the hole. It was very windy that day, and Romero’s putt was directly into the wind. He stroked the ball, but it stopped about three feet shy of the hole. And before Romero could reach his ball, the wind blew it backwards and clear off the green!
In January 2000, it hailed during the Williams World Challenge in Scottsdale, Arizona. No, not hail the size of golf balls… smaller. Still, hail covered everything, so the officials announced a one-hour delay to clear the ice off the greens. But Phil Mickelson, who was on one of the greens, decided to chip instead of putt from about twelve feet away. And he chipped it in for a birdie!
There’s no rule that says you have to putt a ball on the green.
At the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, California, one of Angel Cabrera’s tee shots took one bounce and landed in a garbage can. Did Angel have to hit the ball where it was? The rules say a garbage can is a movable obstruction. Cabrera did not have to play the ball where it lay. He was allowed to lift—and, more importantly, clean the ball—before dropping it next to the can.
The “garbage-can-in-one” was probably the most memorable moment of Cabrera’s U.S. Open that year. He finished with a score of 298 and earned $22,000. That was twenty-six shots and $778,000 behind the winner, Tiger Woods.
In August 1995, 102-year-old Harley Potter from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, played in the Over 100 Golf Championship. Harley shot a 160 the first day, 180 the next—and he won! Harley had an excuse for his high scores—he was a new golfer. “I started when I was 92, and I never had a lesson!”
At the New Orleans Open golf tournament in April 1990, Mike Sullivan was having a problem on a par-3 water hole. The ball was right up against a wooden railing and Mike had to balance himself on top of the railing to try to chip the ball up onto the green. He kept chopping at the ball and it wouldn’t budge. He tried a fourth shot. Then a fifth. Then a sixth. Finally, his next shot actually got the ball in the air, but when it hit the ground the ball hopped backwards into the lake! We’re still doing the math. We think Mike shot an 11 on this par 3!
Worst score during a major golf tournament? Roy Ainsley took 19 strokes at the par-4 sixtelenth hole at the 1938 U.S. Open. He took most of them while attempting to hit a ball out of a brook.
The city of Socorro, New Mexico holds an annual golf tournament called Elfego Baca Shoot. The course is only one hole—five miles down a mountain, through lots of boulders and cactus. This one hole is a par-50 and takes about five hours to play. The winner in 2000 scored a 36, which included penalties for eight lost balls!
What’s the longest golf drive ever?
In September 1990, Kelly Murray drove a golf ball a record 684.8 yards. Turns out Murray was standing on top of a platform at an airport in British Columbia, and he drove the ball down the runway! The ball kept bouncing, and bouncing, and bouncing.…
Hey, it was still a record—nobody said it had to be on grass!
In April 1995, they shut down a runway at the Philadelphia airport so that Laura Davies could drive a golf ball down that tarmac. Her distance? A women’s world driving record, 376 yards.
At the Players Championship in March 1999, Freddy Couples stepped up to the tee on the famed seventeenth hole at Sawgrass, a par-3 island green. Couples knocked his shot right into the water. So, after taking his penalty, he hit another ball. And the ball went into the hole on a fly!
If it was his first shot, it would have been a hole in one. But because of the penalty, Couples scored a 3, which is par for that hole.
SUDDEN DEATH
The world’s longest hole in golf is the 7th at the Satsuki Golf Club in Japan—a 909 yard par seven. The shortest championship hole is the 7th at Pebble Beach, California—it’s just 106 yards.
The longest unofficial golf “course” was the entire United States. From September 14, 1963 to October 3, 1964, golfer Floyd Satterlee Rood played coast-to-coast— from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic—in a total of 114, 737 strokes. During that time he lost 3, 511 balls over the 3, 398 miles.
Scott Palmer made a hole in one in each of four consecutive rounds from October 9–12, 1983, at Balboa Park in San Diego. Palmer also holds the record for most aces in one year—33, from June 5, 1983 to May 31, 1984. Not surprisingly, Palmer also holds the record for most holes in one in a career—100.
Four golfers at the U.S. Open all hit holes in one on the same day—June 16, 1989. Jerry Pate, Nick Price, Doug Weaver, and Mark Weibe all aced the 167-yard par-3 sixth hole at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, NY.
Who’s the oldest player to hit a hole in one? Harold Stilson of Deerfield Beach, Florida, was 101 years old when he got his ace. And the youngest ever to hit a hole in one— Jake Paine of California, was 3 years old when he holed his tee shot!
At a charity golf tournament in Barrington, Rhode Island, on the same hole, on consecutive swings, golfers Lee Jantzen and Scott McCarron both had holes in one.
In July 1999, in Milwaukee, a golfer named Worth Dalton had a hole in one. Dalton is blind.
TENNIS
Men and women chasing tennis balls around the court at high speed can produce some pretty unusual bounces.
I’ve seen shots hit the linesmen, the ball boys, and even the umpires! I’ve seen a ball in play hit a bird in mid flight. I’ve also seen partners in doubles run after the ball, collide with each other, and fall to the ground.
And tennis has some pretty weird rules. For example, you don’t have to hit the ball over the net. You can hit around the net as long as the ball goes into the court on the other side.
I’ve seen players hit serves 150 miles per hour. And I’ve seen players hit underhanded serves at 30 miles per hour—a little kid could return that!
And then there are the fans.… When players serve, the fans are supposed to be quiet and not move. But for some reason, fans seem to make noise at the absolute worst moments. I’ve heard cell phones go off during serves.
Once, when John McEnroe was about to serve, a couple was having a loud conversation behind him. He just stopped in the middle of his serve, turned around, and yelled, “Do you mind?!”
In case you don’t remember, John McEnroe was the famous bad boy of tennis. He ranted and raved at umpires. He virtually invented the phrase “You can’t be serious,” which he screamed at one umpire after a call he didn’t agree with.
So get ready to receive as we serve up some wild and weird tennis moments.
In August 1999, Pete Sampras served the ball and it went right through Patrick Rafter’s racket, breaking the strings. Now that’s a hard serve!
In November 2000, Goran Ivanisevic was playing tennis against Hyung-Taik Lee of Korea. Ivanisevic was having a very tough day. Nothing was going his way—his serve was terrible and so were his forehand, his backhand, and his volley. And as things went from bad to worse he slammed his rackets to the ground in frustration, breaking them one by one. Finally, by the third set he’d tossed his last racket into a garbage can. He had no rackets left, so he had to forfeit the match!
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bsp; In March 1994, Boris Becker was playing Andre Agassi in a tennis tournament in Miami. Becker couldn’t seem to return anything Agassi hit that day, so in a fit of desperation he walked over to one of the ball girls, gave her his racquet, and said, “You give it a go.” To the crowd’s delight, the ball girl walked onto the court and rallied with Agassi.
At the 2004 French Open, there was a tennis match that didn’t want to end. In the first round they played tiebreakers in the first four sets, but not in the deciding fifth. So the fifth set between Fabrice Santoro and Arnaud Clement just kept going and going and going…
Finally, Santoro beat Clement 4–6, 3–6, 7–6, 6–3, 16–14. The match took six hours and thirty-three minutes—the longest recorded tennis match. In fact, it took two days to play the match because darkness forced them to stop before it was completed, and they had to finish the next day.
Compare that with the 1926 women’s final, also at the French Open. Suzanne Lenglen beat Mary K. Browne, 5–1, 6–0, in just twenty-seven minutes.
What was the longest single point in tennis? In October 1984, Jean Hepner was playing Vicky Nelson in Richmond, Virginia. The ball went back and forth over the net 643 times!
That one point lasted twenty-nine minutes— two minutes longer than the entire 1926 French Open women’s final.
Jimmy Connors made two amazing shots. One counted, but the other didn’t.
During one point, Jimmy threw his tennis racquet into the air. The ball hit his racquet and bounced into his opponent’s court, and the stunned player couldn’t return it.
Another time, at the U.S. Open, Connors hit a shot around the net and into the court on the other side. The ball never went over the net.
The one that counts? The “around the net” shot. There’s no rule that says you have to hit it over the net, you just have to hit it into the court on the other side, no matter how it gets there. Unfortunately for Jimmy, a player has to be holding his racquet when he returns the ball. The ball off his airborne racquet didn’t count.
