Obscure Moments in Senators History: Jani Hurme vs. Felix Potvin

"Obscure Moments in Senators History" is a series celebrating the Ottawa Senators' twentieth anniversary by reminiscing on some of the less-celebrated by highly memorable moments in team history.

In the long line of goaltenders the Ottawa Senators have had in franchise history, Jani Hurme might not be the most memorable. He played parts of three seasons for the Senators as backup to Patrick Lalime, chalking up a career record of 29-25-11 in 76 appearances over that span.

I dare you to try and remember him from any of those games, aside from one in particular: The December 20, 2001 contest against the Los Angeles Kings. The game ended in a 4-2 loss, but Hurme wasn't tagged with the L because he left the game while it was still tied at aces after getting into a fight with Felix Potvin.

Now, a goalie fight is always fairly memorable, but this one was especially memorable because, as hard as he tried, Hurme was unable to literally drop the gloves; his trapper was fastened too tightly, and he couldn't get his left hand free. Check out the video below:

Just surreal.

He started off by pawing at Potvin with his trapper, but after a time, he guided the fight towards the Senators bench and reached his hand in so his teammates could help him undo the straps. Todd White, Marian Hossa, Martin Havlat, and Lalime got in on the action, and after a second or two the trapper was off and Hurme started throwing punches.

The line brawl surrounding the goalie fight was certainly memorable--especially Adam Mair jumping off the bench to stop Chris Neil from beating on Mikko Eloranta. But the goalie fight was unreal, made especially unreal because it was Jani Hurme and because of teammates from the bench helping him drop the gloves.

An obscure moment... in Ottawa Senators history.