Minnesota and Boston University played a national semifinal on March 26, 1976, at the old Denver Arena, and before the game was 70 seconds old it produced a wild, bench-clearing brawl that not only stopped the game for, according to some accounts, 30 minutes, it started a war of words between coaches Jack Parker of BU and Herb Brooks of Minnesota.
The accounts vary, but things hot heated after the Terriers’ Terry Meagher was sent to the penalty box for slashing, barely a half-minute after Minnesota’s Russ Anderson was called for cross-checking. The penalty box at DU Arena at the time was one undivided area that also happened to be right next to the Minnesota bench.
According to a Denver Post account of the melee, Parker said Meagher was spit upon by a Minnesota player. Meagher spit back and hit Gophers trainer Gary Smith, and then sticks started swinging and the brawl was on.
The Gophers’ side of things, through Smith, was that the Minnesota bench was only verbally confronting Meagher, who spit first.
However it happened, it took about 10 minutes before order was restored, and then game officials Dino Paniccia and Frank Kelley headed into the referees’ dressing room to meet with the officials from the other semifinal, Medo Martinello and Bill Riley, Harvard coach Bill Cleary, former Boston College coach Snooks Kelley, WCHA head of officials Bob Gilray, NCAA ice hockey committee chair Burt Smith, the NCAA’s Dennis Poppe and both coaches.