Joe's Reaction of the Week (Chip's Version): Danny Briere, Keith Jones, and the Leg Drop Felt 'Round the League

I grew up loving professional wrestling. Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Junkyard Dog, Macho Man Randy Savage, Koko B Ware, Jake the Snake Roberts. It was great. Back in the 1980s it was pretty vanilla. There were good guys (baby faces) and bad guys (heels), and for the most part the good guys stayed good guys and the bad guys stayed bad guys. But by the mid-1990's things started to change.

Wrestling had moved from a Saturday morning thing to Monday nights with Monday Night Raw and Monday Nitro. Raw was put on by the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment), owned by Vince McMahon, while Nitro was run by Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling. Turner was obsessed with beating out McMahon and, to that end, he started signing a lot of WWF talent, including the face of professional wrestling, Hulk Hogan. At the time, the WWF was trying to shift the focus away from some of the big stars of the '80s to a new generation of talent, and also federal probes into rampant steroid use in professional wrestling had taken away some of the baby-face image of Hulk Hogan.

Turner didn't care. His plan was to bring Hogan and the Hulkamaniacs with him. It didn't quite work out that way. Turns out that McMahon was right. The fans who grew up watching Hogan in the '80s were now in our teens or twenties and we weren't into the "say your prayers, eat your vitamins" schtick any more. We wanted something different. Eric Bischoff, who was WCW's senior vice president at the time and the man who signed Hogan, saw the writing on the wall. The Hulk Hogan-era was dying. Bischoff, though, had an idea—a way to rebrand Hogan and turn this whole thing on its head.

On July 7, 1996, WCW hosted a pay-per-view event called Bash at the Beach. The main event—labeled "Hostile Takeover Match" by commentators—was The Outsiders (Kevin Nash and Scott Hall) and their mystery partner, against Randy Savage, Sting, and Lex Luger. At the time, Hall and Nash were not just heels but they were heels who broke all the previous paradigms. They were disrupting matches, disrupting segments, beating up other wrestlers. The rules didn't apply to them. Savage, Sting, and Luger represented the establishment of professional wrestling: three guys who were icons in the business. It was during this match where Eric Bischoff changed the wrestling world forever.

Hogan turning heel was not just shocking—it was unfathomable. At the same time, it led to one of the most creative and entertaining generations of professional wrestling, as both WCW and WWF looked to one-up each other during what was often referred to as The Monday Night Wars, where the two companies would compete week after week for viewers, and the popularity of heels like Hogan and WCW's New World Order and WWF's DegenerationX engaged millions each week.

By now, I know you're thinking, "sir, this has been an interesting professional wrestling history lesson, but what in the holy hell does this have to do with hockey?"

I'm so glad you asked.

Thirty years after the leg drop heard 'round the world, Philadelphia Flyers' general manager Danny Briere and team president Keith Jones embarked on a heel turn that Eric Bischoff would be proud of.

Offer sheets in the National Hockey League have been around for decades, but they're very seldom used. Gary Nyland was signed to the first offer sheet by the Chicago Blackhawks back in 1986, and since then there have been 44 other players who have signed offer sheets. In fact, Adam Graves came to the New York Rangers from the Edmonton Oilers by way of an offer sheet. Still, though, while they've been a tool available to general managers, there was always a sort of unspoken rule that teams wouldn't use them.

Briere and Jones apparently did not get that memo.

After a week of speculation—of "will they," "should they," "can they"—the Anaheim Ducks matched the offer.

No harm, no foul, we all move on? Not quite.