Looking back at one of the craziest games of Mario Lemieux’s career

Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna wrapped up Daily Faceoff Live with the usual Garbage Time segment, with Mike reminding us of the anniversary of an important game in Pittsburgh Penguins legend Mario Lemieux’s career

Mike McKenna: Twenty years ago yesterday – my friend Kurt Hardley pointed this out on Twitter – Mario Lemieux went crazy in a game. He got 29 penalty minutes in one stoppage of play. It reads slashing, instigator, fighting misconduct, game misconduct. The game was a whole shemozzle. There’s YouTube of it, there’s fights, there’s things everywhere.

But what ended up happening was Brad Ference, who I played with in Omaha in the American Hockey League for the Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights, we called him Bitsy, because he was so bitter all the time. Well, Bitsy drove everybody bananas, former first-round pick, and Lemieux had had enough of him. They already had an altercation about four minutes before, and they came across the blue line, Lemieux two-hands him, and then goes after him.

The best part is Mike Keenan coaching the Florida Panthers, the Panthers are up 6-0 so obviously, the Pittsburgh Penguins are pretty angry, the captain Super Mario’s making a point. But Mario had 29 penalty minutes in this game, and the entire season that year had 43 PIMs. So, he took three-quarters of all his penalty minutes in one game, because Brad Ference drove him over the edge.

Frank Seravalli: Two things. One, I would say that Bitsy is an incredible nickname, and I feel like it might stick in my house for me. And two, if you look at Mario Lemieux, he did have one season of 100 penalty minutes back in the same year, 1988-89, that he had 199 points, which is kind of bananas. I just think when you’re a player of that ilk, you’re just like “come on pigeon, get away from me.” You don’t need the extracurriculars, so I love that he got fired up enough to take matters into his own hands.

Mike McKenna: Imagine Connor McDavid doing that, or Auston Matthews just beating the wheels off someone. It just doesn’t happen anymore.

You can watch the full episode here…