The Toronto Star's McSorley shiner photo

The fight is an instant classic. Clark connects early with one of the hardest punches in hockey history. McSorley, to his credit, absorbs the shot and stays on his feet, although the punch decimated half of his face as captured in a memorable front page photo the next day...

From Wendel Moment #1 - Clark vs. McSorley

This wasn't the first time I'd mentioned the classic McSorley photo, and it wouldn't be last. Commenters recalled it fondly. It seemed like everyone remembered that famous shot of McSorley's grotesquely swollen eye, courtesy of Wendel Clark's fist.

But nobody could find it. And memories were hazy: was it from the Star? The Sun? A Google image search came up empty. Several readers even reported searching through various newspaper archives with no luck.

Thanks to a determined DGB reader, we finally have a copy. It's grainy, black-and-white, and maybe a little crooked, but we've found it.

Here's the Toronto Star sport section's front page from May 19, 1993:



Besides the photo itself, the entire section is a gold mine of classic coverage, including:

• Cliff Fletcher doing his best Brian Burke impression. For example: "All I'm saying is (McSorley) may try (going after Gilmour), but it won't happen again". When asked to clarify, Fletcher responds: "Ever play in the NHL? Go ask someone who has."
  
  
• The always-classy Barry Melrose mocking Pat Burns: "I could have said 'Have another donut'. If Pat could see himself on film, he would howl."
  
  
• Burns responding by referring to Melrose as "Billy Ray Cyrus".
  
  
• Melrose throwing a mini-tantrum at reporters for pointing out that the Leafs had outshot the Kings 22-1 in the third period of game one, leading reporter Chris Young to speculate that Melrose wanted to talk about "more important stuff, like his hair."
  
  
• A Rosie DiManno piece headlined "Brawny Baumgartner is brainy too" which reads pretty much exactly like you probably think it does.
  
  
• Various other pieces of nostalgia, such as the weekly Starball standings, Bob McCown's "Vegas Line", and an ad offering a "store manager's special" of a desktop computer with a mighty 4MB of RAM and two floppy drives for the low price of $1,899.
  

So there you have it. And remember kids: do not make Wendel Clark angry.