In 1994, Bob Probert needed a head butt to stop a 21-year-old Flames rookie, and he waited 16 years to say who hit him hardest. Sandy McCarthy's Title Belt opened our three-part series on McCarthy this week, and the first Overtime below is the rest of the file: the playoff series where the rematch never came, and what the league's own penalty sheets say. Then Cole Reschny, a month into the youngest captaincy in North Dakota history, and the faceoff numbers that changed the night the piece ran. The Flames, meanwhile, have won two straight and host Detroit tonight.

This week

Sandy McCarthy's Title Belt (Tales from the Sin Bin, Riley Quinn) In 1994, Bob Probert needed a head butt to stop a 21-year-old rookie. It took him 16 years and a memoir to name who had the hardest punch.

One Historic Season, One Month With the C: Cole Reschny's Ascent at North Dakota (Rinkside Dispatch, Anthony Dillett) The Dakota Student's Anthony Dillett on what the C looks like now that Reschny wears it in games that count, with Dane Jackson, a text from Dave Hakstol, and the "sour taste" left by last spring's Frozen Four.

Overtime: Sandy McCarthy's Title Belt

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The Rematches

The story ends with Probert's book. What follows is for readers who want the rest of the file: what the league's own penalty records say about the two of them, the playoff series where the rematch everyone wanted never came, and the night in Chicago in more detail. Every line is sourced in our fact-check.

Twice on the sheet. Calgary played Detroit or Chicago 44 times in McCarthy's years as a Flame, counting one playoff series. We went through the NHL's penalty record for every one of those games. It puts McCarthy and Probert in the box for fighting at the same second exactly twice: 4:13 of the first period in Detroit on April 2, 1994, and 15:58 of the first period in Chicago on November 10, 1997. A penalty sheet never says who fought whom, but the Herald named them both nights. The fan databases count their fights differently. The league's paperwork has two.

The series that was supposed to be a brawl. April 1996, first round, Calgary against Chicago. Before Game 1, Allan Maki of the Herald got McCarthy to remember Detroit ("It was a good fight") and promised his readers a KO special, "like a couple of mastodons battling it out in a tar pit."

It never happened. Chicago swept in four, and neither heavyweight took a fighting major in any of the games. Probert had decided what kind of series it would be. "Personally, I just go out and play hockey," he told the Herald, which noted that he only scowled when McCarthy's name came up. "When you're thinking about the team, it's nothing to turn away from him. You gotta be smart."

Chelios instead. With Probert not biting, McCarthy went looking elsewhere. As the first period of Game 3 ran out at the Saddledome, he elbowed Chris Chelios to the ice and punched him while he was down. Chicago scored twice on the power play that followed and won 7-5.

"I punched him when he was on the ice because he'll know the next time I come around that he's going to get another one," McCarthy told the Herald. He also admitted it was not working. "It's backfired on me so far in the series."

Chelios, who put the weight difference at 45 pounds, was almost cheerful about it. "Wow, he knocked me out," he said. "Now I know how a boxer feels."

And Probert, the man McCarthy actually wanted, had the last word. "In playoff hockey, you don't retaliate. It cost them a couple of goals."

Chicago, the whole night. The fight in the piece's photograph came at 15:58 of the first period on November 10, 1997, with Chicago already up 1-0 on a Gary Suter goal. The Herald's play-by-play gave it one line: "McCarthy handles Probert in heavyweight tussle." The paper made McCarthy its third star, for an aggressive game.

A television report on the fight added two things the paper did not. Probert, it said, was "back after a few weeks on the sick list" and picked the fight, and McCarthy was fighting "with a broken nose." That report is our only source for either detail, so take them as one reporter's account.

Probert was not finished for the night. The sheet has him fighting again in the third period, with Calgary's Mike Peluso, and taking a misconduct alongside Peluso with less than two minutes left. Andrew Cassels tied the game with 56 seconds to go and Dwayne Roloson on the bench. When the Blackhawks came to Calgary seventeen days later, the Herald reported that Probert needed season-ending surgery on his rotator cuff, and that he had hurt it fighting McCarthy.

Which hand. Introducing him before the 1994 fight, the broadcast called McCarthy "a left-hander, mainly." The Herald's man at the game counted right hands. McCarthy, talking years later about his fights with Jim McKenzie, put it more simply: "We could both throw both hands and we just wanted to throw." Probert's book settled a different question, the one about who hit hardest.

His last one as a Red Wing. Asked on a podcast in 2026 which of his fights people should go and watch, McCarthy picked Detroit. "From what I understand, it was his last fight as a Red Wing," he said. The record agrees with him. Probert dressed for one more regular-season game and seven playoff games for Detroit that spring, and took no fighting major in any of them. He did not play in the NHL the next season, and when he came back it was in a Chicago sweater. McCarthy remembers the suspension as five games. It was two. The rest he has right.

"It kind of solidified the fact that . . . he's no joke, right?" he said. "I'm no joke, and that you better be ready."

Overtime: Cole Reschny's first month

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The dot

Anthony's piece has Dane Jackson saying North Dakota will lean on Cole Reschny in the faceoff circle now that Ellis Rickwood is gone. Here is what the first six games say, from UND's box scores.

Through four games, the heavier load went to Josephson, the other sophomore centre, and he won more often. Then came Minnesota. On Thursday, the night the piece ran, Reschny won 17 of 22, and on Friday 12 of 21, and he now leads the pair in win rate, 63 percent to 59. Josephson has still taken more. North Dakota lost both nights 5-3, with Wyatt Cullen scoring three for Minnesota on Friday. Reschny had a goal and two assists on the weekend.

Jackson's "killing those five on threes" comes from the second Bentley game, on Oct. 17. North Dakota took two penalties five seconds apart early in the second period, and killed Bentley's two-man advantage from 6:21 to 8:16 without giving up a goal. North Dakota won 5-0 both nights.

Coming up

The Flames, 3-6 after beating Carolina and the Minnesota Wild, are home to Detroit tonight and Toronto on Monday, then in Edmonton on Wednesday. On Friday, the eve of North Dakota against Michigan State in Cedar Park, Texas, we preview a game with four Flames first-round picks on the ice: Cole Reschny and Carson Carels against Jack Hextall and Cullen Potter.

From the archive

Grant Fuhr's 23 Weird Games: the Flames are in Edmonton on Wednesday, so here is the goaltender who spent a decade beating Calgary, then signed with them, waived a no-trade clause to get here, and gave them one great night out of a hard year.