No one can perfect a mantrum like an NHL player in a penalty box. We’ll cover the three most epic meltdowns ever.
Honorable Mention Goes To…
Brendan Shanahan. Holding women to an unrealistic body hair standard is not ideal, but when it’s this Detroit Red Wing, we’ll let it slide.
A woman was shouting at Brendan from the stands. And unfortunately for her, she did so wearing a tank top. Shanahan, with the most condescending look on his face ever, motioned to her to shave her pits, shaking his head in disagreement with the state of her underarms.
Fans probably thought twice about coming for a player in a penalty box after this ordeal. No one has forgotten, and it’s been over 20 years.
3rd Most Epic Penalty Box Mantrum
Being a penalty box attendant is probably on par with most customer service jobs in terms of being abused by your clientele.
We all can empathize with the man in a suit who has to sit next to a furious Andrew Shaw. Also, Shaw’s stick doesn’t make it out of this situation in one piece.
For a little bit of context, Montreal Canadien Andrew Shaw got a trip to the box for hooking an Anaheim Duck opponent in 2016.
Apparently, Andrew needed to let some steam off after seeing the replay, so he smashed the end of his stick off the walls of the box and then snapped the remaining part in half on his lower leg. We don’t know what Mr. Shaw was saying the entire time, but we assume it wasn’t nice.
The Canadien was ejected from the game for his out-of-pocket behavior and went to the locker room, trading words with the officials the entire way.
#2: Most Epic Meltdown
![](https://totalapexsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Gilmour2-1.jpg)
Doug Gilmour probably didn’t mean to bring the house down when he got in trouble at the tail end of the 2001-2002 season as a Montreal Canadien (what is up with the players from Montreal on this list?).
A penalty didn’t sit well with Gilmour, so he closed the penalty box door very firmly. Hard enough for the glass to smash before his butt even hit the bench, in fact.
The worst part was that the entire game had to be put on ice while the clean-up crew cleared all the shards.
The Penalty Box Mantrum We’ve All Been Waiting For
(2001) Flyers fan goes from the 2nd row into the penalty box to fight Tie Domi.
pic.twitter.com/HOgiV5i8MM— Barstool Philly (@BarstoolPhilly) March 29, 2021
2001 is the year of box-related meltdowns. They happened other times, but they truly went off the rails at the turn of the 21st century.
Number one, of course, goes to Tie Domi laying hands on a fan.
In that fateful game in 2001, the Toronto Maple Leaf player was in the box of shame, and he had a peanut gallery behind him to rub it in for him.
Domi responded to the hecklers by squirting water from his bottle onto the loud observers. A fan got a little too into the verbal dispute, losing his balance and falling into the penalty box.
Instead of letting the middle-aged man, who looked like he hadn’t done any type of sport in a while, go, Tie taught him a lesson.
![](https://totalapexsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/maxresdefault-40-1.jpg)
The fan was no match, and it ultimately took two referees to get Domi off of him. It wasn’t exactly a fair fight, not just because of age and athleticism but also because the Toronto Maple Leaf was in full uniform, with some very helpful padding.
Don’t mess with Domi or with bats. Read my other article about the NHL involving a bat, karma, and fog here. You don’t want to miss it.