Russ Courtnall was on the wrong end of a five-on-five brawl in Detroit, with Basil McRae holding him off the ice by the throat. A few feet away, his Toronto teammate Wendel Clark was trading punches with Bob Probert, the most feared man in the sport.
Clark was handling that part. He was also paying attention to everything else.
“I’m playing for the Leafs and Wendel is beating the [expletive] out of Bob Probert. And every time he’s punching him, he’s looking over,” Courtnall said on the Ice Guardians Podcast. “Basil is just lifting me up and choking me.”
Then Clark issued his instruction, without pausing what he was doing.
“Wendel starts telling Basil, as he’s beating Probert up, ‘If you don’t let him go, you’re next,'” Courtnall said. “And Basil let me go. That’s how tough Wendel is. He was unbelievable.”
Wendel Clark’s start in the NHL:
| Draft year | Pick | Drafted as | NHL shifts on defense |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | 1st overall | Defenseman | 0 |
Did Wendel Clark ever beat Bob Probert?
Brett Hull hosts that podcast, and he spent his St. Louis years in the same division as both men. He was the one who brought the subject up, and he didn’t go about it delicately.
“You wanna go on YouTube and everyone says Bob Probert. Wendel Clark used to beat the [expletive] out of Bob Probert,” Hull said. “Clark is the toughest human being on the planet.”
Hull had opened the conversation by asking his guests whether they would agree that Clark is one of the greatest hockey players who ever lived, which is not a question most people would think to ask about a man with his point totals. His case rests on everything else.
“Dude, he was a killer,” Hull said.
The Norris Division of that era is why these stories exist at all. It contained so many enforcers that players took to calling it the Chuck Norris Division, and Toronto, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago and Minnesota spent the better part of a decade settling disagreements the long way.
Courtnall’s summary of his old teammate covers the full oddity of him.
“Drafted as a defenseman, never played one shift in the NHL as a defenseman. And he scored goals and beat the crap out of every player. Toughest guy. Thank God he was my teammate,” Courtnall said.
Read more:
