Which classic Battle of Ontario moments should Maple Leafs and Senators fans shelve or keep?

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This post is about the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs, but first I need to tell you a story about the Colorado Avalanche and Detroit Red Wings.

It comes from a game played late in the 1995-96 season. The Wings would go on to win a 7-0 blowout, so you can imagine that the players on both sides were already agitated. At one point, Detroit’s Keith Primeau had his stick slashed out of his hand as he went to the bench. Colorado’s Mike Ricci tried to slide it away, at which point Kris Draper slashed his stick out of his hand. Primeau picked up Ricci’s stick and intentionally broke it. In return, Ricci grabbed a water bottle and tossed it at Primeau, hitting him in, uh, a sensitive area.

It was all very funny, and if you saw the highlight at the time, you probably joked about it with your hockey fan friends for weeks afterward. It was, we all assumed, one of those memorable hockey moments.

Two months later, some other stuff happened between the Avalanche and Red Wings. And then later, a lot more. And then even more. And these days, when that rivalry comes up, nobody really talks about broken sticks or water bottle tosses.

The point here is that when a rivalry reaches a certain point, the bar for what qualifies as a memorable moment gets raised. Throwing a water bottle into somebody’s groin would probably rank pretty highly in terms of heated moments between two random teams. But Detroit and Colorado? Sorry, the list is kind of full, we’ll have to put you on standby.

That brings us back to the Battle of Ontario. It burned brightest between 2000 and 2004, when the two teams met in the playoffs four times and seemed to legitimately hate each other. The rivalry has remained ever since, but the postseason version stayed dormant for 21 years. But now it’s back, with the two teams facing each other in this year’s opening round. And while nothing too wild has happened yet, we’ve still got time for some classic playoff madness.

Just in case, I think we might need to make room for some new Battle of Ontario moments. And that means we may need to mothball a few old ones to make room.

But which ones? I’m not sure. So I came up with a list of 10 of the rivalry’s most frequently cited moments, and the case for and against putting them on the shelf next to the old dusty box marked “water bottle groin.” We’re not looking for big goals here — sorry to all the Cory Cross fans — but rather the nastier moments that are vying for a place in our collective memory banks.

The bench brawl

The moment: In the third period of a 2003 game, Darcy Tucker decided to try to fight Chris Neil. That wasn’t a great idea at the best of times, made worse by the fact that Neil was on the bench at the time.

Tucker ended up also fighting Shane Hnidy, becoming one of the few players to earn fighting majors against multiple players in the same brawl. Come on man, you never go full Forbes Kennedy.

The case for shelving it: At the time, there were allegations that Neil had spit at someone, but that wasn’t true. Instead, it was just Darcy being Darcy, which may or may not be a good thing depending on which side of the rivalry you’re on.

The case for keeping it: This may be one of the few moments in the entire rivalry that both fan bases agree was pretty great.

The verdict: We’re starting off with an easy one. Of course we keep this.

The fake stick throw

The moment: Midway through the 2003-04 season, Mats Sundin had been suspended one game for throwing a broken stick into the stands. As it happened, the game he missed was in Toronto against the Senators. Late in a blowout win, Daniel Alfredsson broke his own stick and briefly pantomimed tossing it into the stands.

This was either the most evil thing anyone had ever done (according to Leaf fans) or the absolute funniest (according to Sens fans). The only thing the two rival fan bases could agree on was that it was extraordinarily important.

The case for shelving it: Watch that clip again, then realize these two fan bases spent literal years litigating this moment. It’s not just the single dumbest thing that’s happened in this rivalry, it might be the most overhyped controversy in league history.

The case for keeping it: Not applicable.

The verdict: Fake-throw it into the center of the sun. Then do it for real.

The ragdoll

The moment: During a characteristically nasty 2004 meeting between the teams, Bryan McCabe decided it would be fun to drop the gloves with Zdeno Chara. Spoiler alert: It was not.

The case for shelving it: First of all, despite the way a lot of people seem to remember it, this moment did not come in a playoff game. It happened late in a game the Maple Leafs won 5-1, so it’s not like the mismatch was some kind of turning point.

But far more importantly … I mean, is that even a fight? There aren’t any punches thrown. Both of these guys could fight — McCabe was a decent welterweight, and most of Chara’s fights ended up like this. But this one wasn’t a fight, literally, as both guys only got minors.

Go back and watch some of those Detroit/Colorado clips. Do we really want to take a rivalry that featured guys such as Tie Domi, Chris Neil, Brian McGrattan and Wade Belak and say that this was the most memorable scrap?

The case for keeping it: It is objectively hilarious.

The verdict: Keep it. For whatever reason, the Battle of Ontario didn’t feature a ton of one-on-one bouts. And the way the game has evolved, we’re unlikely to see all that many more. We can have a little ragdoll as a treat.

The ref wipeout

The moment: During the third period of Game 3 of their 2000 series, the Senators score a goal against Leafs goaltender Curtis Joseph, who thinks he’s been interfered with. Hoping to plead his case to referee Mick McGeough, Joseph ends up doing this:

The case for shelving it: While the goal stood, Senators fans were furious that Joseph received only a misconduct on the play. Ottawa didn’t get a power play, and Joseph wasn’t suspended or even fined. But he shouldn’t have been, since the wipeout was clearly accidental and the league was never going to suspend a starting goaltender from the playoffs over a slip.

More importantly, the Senators won the game — this goal actually ended up being the winner — and the next one to tie the series, so no harm done.

The case for keeping it: Also objectively hilarious.

The verdict: This was really the first truly memorable moment of the rivalry, so it would be a shame to lose it. How about this: We all agree none of this ended up mattering, but we keep the highlight just for the comedic value.

The flu game

The moment: At the height of the rivalry in 2004, the Leafs visited the Senators for a regular-season game in which the Senators jumped out to an early 4-0 lead. But with both teams, and especially Ottawa, suffering from a flu bug, the game quickly turned into a debacle of players exiting and returning, presumably after, uh, taking care of some business in the dressing room. By the end of it, the Senators barely had anyone left on the bench, and the Leafs came back to win 5-4 on an OT winner by Owen Nolan.

After the game, when asked if he had any sympathy for his flu-stricken opponents, Nolan dropped the memorable quote “boo hoo.”

The case for shelving it: This was a regular-season game that didn’t matter all that much. And both teams really were badly sick, so acting like the blown lead meant much seems like a stretch.

The case for keeping it: Nolan’s quote does reach a level of pettiness that all good rivalries should aspire to.

The verdict: I’ll offer another split verdict here, as we keep “boo hoo” but ditch the actual game. After all, if we wanted to watch the 2004 Senators all poop themselves at the same time, we could just wait for every Gary Roberts shift in the playoffs.

Bell on Alfredsson

The moment: During the penultimate game of the 2007-08 season, Leafs forward Mark Bell catches Alfredsson with his head down and delivers a brutal open-ice hit that knocks him out of the lineup for the start of the playoffs.

The case for shelving it: Oof. While the play was deemed “clean” by the rules of the day, it wouldn’t be today, and it’s kind of a hard watch given what we now know about head hits. The fact that Bell’s tenure in Toronto was short and he had no connection to the rest of the rivalry doesn’t help.

The case for keeping it: Every rivalry needs its villains, and for Leafs fans, Alfredsson was that guy. At the time, Toronto fans loved the moment, even as the Senators seethed about it. The hit and its aftermath are also just about the only memorable part of Paul Maurice’s brief tenure as Leafs coach.

The verdict: The villain getting his comeuppance is a key part of a good rivalry story, and hockey fans have never insisted that it comes cleanly. (See Detroit fans still celebrating Darren McCarty kneeing Claude Lemieux in the head.) But the post-playoff era wasn’t this rivalry at its best, as our next entry reminds us.

The stick measurement

The moment: Late in a regular season game in 2009 and with his team trailing by a goal, Leafs coach Ron Wilson requests a stick measurement on Ottawa’s Jason Spezza. The stick is indeed illegal, and the Leafs get a power play, but they don’t score and the Senators go on to win the game. Afterward, fans debate whether Wilson’s move was a smart ploy or a cheap tactic, given how measurements are almost never requested in the modern game.

The case for shelving it: While this was a surprisingly big deal at the time, it doesn’t hold up especially well. If anything, it feels like the last gasp of any lingering playoff-era bad blood. And while Wilson could occasionally be a fun character, when it comes to antagonizing the Senators, he was no Pat Quinn. Given that Spezza eventually went on to finish his career with the Leafs, he doesn’t even work as well as the victim here in hindsight.

The case for keeping it: While most great rivalry moments are based on nastiness and bad blood, never underestimate the power of somebody just being kind of a jerk.

The verdict: Yeah, we can let this one go.

Domi vs. Arvedson

The moment: In the same game that saw the Tucker bench fight, Senators winger Magnus Arvedson got a little too close to Domi. The Leafs enforcer ended up dropping his decidedly less pugilistic opponent with a gloved punch, setting off a skirmish that saw Alfredsson threaten to go full lumberjack with his stick.

Domi was slapped with 29 PIM on the play and suspended for three games. Arvedson was banged up but OK, apart from his presumably injured pride if he saw this clip of a furious Nick Kypreos.

The case for shelving it: Can a moment really be rivalry-worthy if it’s not even the most memorable thing that happened in the same game? (Remembers that McCarty/Lemieux and Patrick Roy/Mike Vernon came on the same night.) Yeah, maybe.

The case for keeping it: As we’ve already said, rivalries need villains, and Domi was more than willing to embrace the role. We need him in here somewhere.

The verdict: We can ditch it, because luckily there’s a better Domi moment …

“If Tie Domi had better balance …”

The moment: With the Senators leading the 2002 series 3-2 and looking to eliminate the Leafs in Ottawa, they dominated early and jumped out to a 2-0 lead. With victory over the hated Leafs finally in their grasp, the game turned on a boneheaded hit from behind from Ricard Persson on Domi.

Domi was busted open, Persson got five and a game, the Leafs scored twice on the power play, and the comeback was on. Toronto would go on to win the game and the series.

The case for shelving it: Aside from the various overtime goals, this might be the single most important moment in the rivalry in terms of determining an outcome. Unfortunately, it involves Persson, a player virtually nobody remembers. If only it had been someone Leafs fans could really hate.

The case for keeping it: Yeah, about that. While Persson is mostly a footnote in the rivalry, Alfredsson got involved after the fact. Specifically, he seemed to imply that Domi may have taken a dive, dropping a sound bite of, “If Tie Domi had better balance, we would have won.”

The verdict: Keep it, obviously. Thanks to Alfredsson’s quote, it’s a near-perfect rivalry moment, one involving a hated villain on either side that swung a series and where each fan base can claim to have been wronged.

Side note: Man, look at the nasty horizontal cut across Domi’s forehead. Don’t worry Sens fans, I’m sure this is the only time Domi’s bloodline will cost you a crucial playoff game.

The hit from behind

The moment: It’s the crucial Game 5 of a tied series, and with the score knotted late in regulation, we seem headed for overtime. That’s when this happens:

That’s Alfredsson plastering Tucker from behind, then scoring the winning goal. Be sure to stick around for Quinn’s postgame comments to really get a feel for the whole vibe that night.

The case for shelving it: You hate hockey rivalries.

The case for keeping it: Come on. It’s arguably the rivalry’s two main characters colliding, literally, on a play that’s just close enough that we can still argue it to this day. And it directly decided the result of not just any game, but a playoff game. Mix in Quinn’s “quite frankly I’m full of anger” soundbite, and this is probably the single greatest moment in Battle of Ontario history.

The verdict: Nothing that happens in this series will ever top this. We hope. Wait, nobody show this to Brady Tkachuk.

(Photo: Peter Power / Toronto Star via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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