Brendan Shanahan Fought An NHL Player For Snubbing His Autograph Request When He Was A Teenager

If revenge is a dish that’s best served cold, there’s no better place to get some than a hockey rink. There’s typically plenty of retribution to go around in the NHL, but it’s hard to think of a pettier example than a fight involving Brendan Shanahan and Rick Vaive.

Shanahan spent a grand total of 21 seasons in the NHL, but he’s best known for what he achieved alongside Soviet Union defector Sergei Fedorov in Detriot while racking up three Stanley Cups with the Red Wings. However, he’d already made a name for himself prior to that point, as he wasted no time emerging as one of the most electric wingers in the league after he was selected by the Devils with the second overall pick in the 1987 NHL Draft.

The hype surrounding the Ontario native stemmed from his stellar play with the London Knights, an OHL team located around two hours away from the town where he was raised. The man who’s served as the president of the Maple Leafs since 2014 was a diehard fan of the franchise when he was growing up, and while he was lucky enough to cross paths with one of his idols as a teenager, it was the textbook definition of a “Never Meet Your Heroes” Moment.

However, Shanahan eventually pounced on the opportunity to get some payback.

Brendan Shanahan fought Rick Vaive in an NHL game after failing to get an autograph as a 14-year-old

Rick Vaive played in the World Hockey Association (WHA) before the league shuttered in the summer of 1979, and he made his NHL debut with the Canucks at the start of the ensuing season.

The following year, Vancouver traded him to the Maple Leafs, and Vaive quickly became Toronto’s primary offensive weapon en route to becoming the first player to score 50 goals in a season for the franchise (a mark he surpassed three years in a row).

In 1983, a 14-year-old Shanhan was practicing at a rink in Toronto when he learned Vaive was skating at the same facility, and after they both wrapped up their sessions, the teenager approached the Maple Leafs star in search of an autograph. However, as he recalled in an interview decades later, “I didn’t get the best response from Rick Vaive at that time.”

In 1991, Vaive was playing what would be his final NHL season as a member of the Sabres when Buffalo faced off against Shanhahan and the Devils. It’s hard to imagine Vaive even remembered the supposed slight, but Shanahan certainly hadn’t based on what unfolded after a faceoff:

“When the puck dropped, I attacked Rick Vaive. It was a quiet, uneventful game.

He couldn’t believe the rage I had, not only in attacking him, but it took two linesmen to restrain me afterwards and throw me in the penalty box.”

Vaive asked one of Shanahan’s teammates what he’d done to set the youngster off, and it was at that point he was informed he probably should’ve just signed the autograph a random teenager asked him for while he was sitting in the locker room of a rink in Toronto.

The story does have a happy ending, as Vaive eventually introduced his own 14-year-old son to Shanahan, who was more than happy to sign the autograph that was requested.