When Tony Twist changed his mind in a heartbeat to defend Kelly Chase and turned a bar into Road House
You didn’t want to mess with Kelly Chase. All NHL teams passed him during the 1988 NHL entry draft. He scored many points in juniors but also had penalty minutes in extremely high numbers.
But the St. Louis Blues took a shot on him anyways, as they signed him undrafted. And what a move that turned out to be. Chase always played tough and had a great reputation as one of the league’s most fearsome enforcers.
He played with another legendary enforcer, Tony Twist, and they both made the Blues a team to fear. Twist was a great fighter, and they didn’t take any prisoners when they took to the ice.
But they also got into some trouble off the ice. Speaking on ”The Kilcoyne Conversation” podcast, Chase was asked if they ever got into fights off the ice because of their reputation on the ice.
”It happened every once in a while,” he said.
He especially remembers a time in St. Louis at Humphrey’s Restaurant & Tavern, when a rugby team from Kansas City asked for trouble.
”We were in Humphreys two weeks before training camp. I’m there with Shanahan and one of my friends in juniors. At the time I was with my girlfriend and it was our first date in St. Louis. She happens to be my wife now. So she stuck around after this incident,” he said.
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”I asked them to put on some country music, and a guy starts yelling about it. I tried to ignore him but he comes over to me and he goes, ’You put this shit on?’ And I just tried to say, ’Hey, listen. You can listen to whatever you want.’ I’m trying to make good with this girl, I think I have a chance,” he said.
”And all of the sudden, this guy pushes me. I asked him what he was doing, and he just hits me. As soon as he hits me, all of the guys jumps up. Of course I react and hits this guy. And Twist grabs me, and he lifts me off the ground because he’s so strong, and he’s got my back in his chest and pinch me against the wall face first. And he goes, ’What are you doing bud? We have camp in like two weeks.”
”And then this guy cracks Twist in the ear.”
”He put me down, and it looked like Road House in there. We went into that pile of guys; Me, Shanahan and Twister. And the police came, handcuffing everybody on the floor. They were nice enough to take us downstairs, and they wanted to know who wanted to press charges.”
”One of their guys actually wanted to, and the police were like, ’Are you sure? Obviously you don’t have a lot of friends in here, you’re a rugby team from Kansas City. By the sound of it, it sounds like you were the instigators, and you all shouted at one guy and broke his mouth.”
”That’s one of the stories that no one ever goes out with. It was legit, and Twist… You don’t want to get him mad. Shanahan was one of the toughest, and my buddy was tough. You could pick a better foursome to start a fight with. That wasn’t a great deal for those guys.”
”That rugby team. I don’t know how they played the next day, but boy, did they get a lickin’.”
