Tie Domi’s heartwarming memory from fighting a fan
Such a gentleman!
Tie Domi
Tie Domi is a Canadian former NHL right winger who played 1,020 regular-season games as an enforcer and finished with 3,515 penalty minutes, the third highest total in league history when Domi retired. Domi played twelve seasons for the Toronto Maple Leafs either side of spells with the New York Rangers and the Winnipeg Jets, and Domi holds the Maple Leafs record for career penalty minutes. Outside Toronto, Domi is remembered above all for one night in Philadelphia in March 2001, when a Flyers supporter came through the glass and into the penalty box.
| Position | Right wing, shoots right |
|---|---|
| Born | 1 November 1969 in Windsor, Ontario |
| Drafted | Toronto Maple Leafs, second round, 27th overall, 1988 |
| Teams | Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers, Winnipeg Jets |
| Career totals | 1,020 NHL games, 104 goals, 141 assists, 245 points, 3,515 penalty minutes |
| Honours | Maple Leafs franchise records for career penalty minutes and for a single season, 365 in 1997-98 |
| Known for | Fighting a Flyers supporter in the penalty box in Philadelphia, 29 March 2001 |
| After hockey | The 2015 autobiography Shift Work, plus television and endorsement work in Canada |
What happened when Tie Domi fought a fan in the penalty box?
Toronto were in Philadelphia on 29 March 2001 when Domi took an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the third period and was heckled in the visitors' box at the First Union Center. Domi answered by squirting water from a bottle at the fans behind the glass, twice. One of them swung back, the glass panel gave way under the weight, and the supporter dropped into the box alongside Domi. Domi pulled the man's sweatshirt up over his head and the two wrestled until the officials got between them. Toronto won the game 2-1. Domi has since described what Domi remembers most warmly about the night.
Who was Chris Falcone, the fan in the Tie Domi fight?
Chris Falcone was the Flyers supporter who ended up in the penalty box with Domi on 29 March 2001, a concrete worker from Havertown in suburban Philadelphia who had a seat directly behind the glass. Falcone was among the fans Domi sprayed with water, swung back at Domi, and went through the panel when it collapsed. Reporting from the time says Falcone was cut on the forehead during the scramble and was escorted out of the arena with no charges brought. Falcone has been a local folk figure in the Delaware Valley ever since.
The fine, the lawsuit and what happened after the penalty box fight
The NHL fined Domi 1,000 dollars, the maximum the league's rules allowed at the time, and did not suspend Domi. Almost two years later Falcone filed a civil suit naming Domi, the NHL, the Maple Leafs and the arena operator, arguing among other things that the glass had been improperly installed. As reported at the time, the suit was dismissed, and the appeal was dropped after Falcone and Domi met and made peace in 2004. What the two said to each other afterwards is the part of the story that usually gets left out of the clip.
Tie Domi's 3,515 penalty minutes and where they rank
Domi served 3,515 penalty minutes in 1,020 regular-season games and retired third on the NHL's all-time list, behind Dave Williams and Dale Hunter. No Maple Leaf has served more. Domi passed Williams for the Toronto franchise record and set the club's single-season mark with 365 penalty minutes in 1997-98. Another 238 penalty minutes came in 98 playoff games. The scoring record was modest by comparison, 104 goals and 245 points across sixteen NHL seasons, which is the trade an enforcer of that era made.
Tie Domi against Bob Probert, Rob Ray and the heavyweights
Domi stood well under six feet, listed at 5-8 by some sources and 5-10 by others, and gave away size to most of the fighters Domi was matched against. The February 1992 bout with Detroit's Bob Probert at Madison Square Garden is the famous one, after which Domi mimed strapping on a championship belt; Probert settled the account in a December 1992 rematch. Hockeyfights, a fan-run database rather than official NHL statistics, counts ten Domi versus Rob Ray fights between 1993 and 1999. The line Domi used to get Probert to drop the gloves and Domi's one-sentence verdict on Ray both survive.
Tie Domi and Ulf Samuelsson
One of the most cited moments of Domi's career came in October 1995, early in Ulf Samuelsson's first full season with the New York Rangers, when Domi hit Samuelsson in the face with a single unprovoked punch and left Samuelsson unconscious on the ice. The NHL suspended Domi for eight games. Domi's account, repeated for decades since, is that Samuelsson had been warned once about what Samuelsson was saying and said it again anyway. The single word behind the punch is the detail Domi keeps returning to.
The 2001 elbow on Scott Niedermayer
On 3 May 2001, with 7.4 seconds left in game four of the Eastern Conference semi-final against New Jersey, Domi elbowed Scott Niedermayer in the face as the Devils defenceman circled up the ice. Niedermayer was knocked out, left the rink on a stretcher and was diagnosed with a concussion. The NHL suspended Domi for the rest of the playoffs, with a further eight regular-season games to be served in 2001-02 if Toronto did not reach the final. Colin Campbell, the league's discipline chief, said Domi had forfeited the privilege of playing any further part that spring.
Max Domi, Tie Domi's son
Max Domi, born 2 March 1995 in Winnipeg, is Tie Domi's son and made the NHL as a scoring forward rather than as an enforcer. Phoenix took Max Domi twelfth overall in the first round of the 2013 draft, after a junior career with the London Knights of the OHL. Tie Domi has watched most of that career from the stands, and Tie Domi's reactions to it, to the goals and to the fights alike, have become a small genre of clip in their own right.
