The Punch-up in Piestany was a bench-clearing brawl between Canada and the Soviet Union during the final game of the 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Piešťany, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia) on January 4, 1987.

Much of the blame was placed on Norwegian referee Hans Rønning, who had been selected for the game based on his perceived neutrality rather than experience.

Following the brawl, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) suspended the players involved for 18 months and the coaches for three years.

The brawl dramatically raised the profile of the World Junior Hockey Championships in Canada, where it is now one of the top events on the annual sports calendar.

Several players in the game went on to play in the National Hockey League (NHL), including Theoren Fleury, Mike Keane, Everett Sanipass, Brendan Shanahan, Luke Richardson, Pierre Turgeon, and Glen Wesley for Canada and Sergei Fedorov, Vladimir Konstantinov, and Alexander Mogilny for the Soviets.

From 1963 until 1983, the Soviets captured 17 World Championship titles[1] amidst repeated accusations from Canada that their teams were made up of professionals masquerading as amateurs.

The accusations eventually led to Canada boycotting all World Championships and Olympic hockey tournaments between 1970 and 1976.

Canada won the eight-game series 4–3–1 as Paul Henderson scored the winning goal late in the deciding contest.

The match-up between the two squads was deliberately scheduled to be the final game of the tournament, as organizers expected at least one of the teams would be playing for the gold medal.

[17] Upon hearing of Rønning's assignment, Canadian representative Dennis McDonald sought out the IIHF supervisor of officials, René Fasel, hoping to convince him to select a different referee.

The officials were not on the ice when the melee occurred; however, Rønning ejected one player from each team at random for starting the brawl.

In celebrating the goal, Fleury slid across centre ice on his knees acting as if his stick was a machine gun and pretended to "open fire" on the Soviet bench.

Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) president Murray Costello later called it an "inflammatory act, completely unnecessary, lacking any sort of respect.

"[23] The first period continued in similar fashion with both teams repeatedly slashing their opponents and Canada emerging with a 3–1 lead.

"[24] Early in the second period, the game was paused for a moment of silence in memory of four Swift Current Broncos players who were killed when their team bus crashed in Saskatchewan five days previous.

[26] The brawl began after a face-off as Shesterikov collided with Everett Sanipass with 6:07 left in the second period, resulting in a fight between the two.

Returning from a commercial break, Canadian commentator Don Wittman understated the severity of the fighting by saying "well, we had a real skirmish just moments ago following a face-off.

[32] Unable to control the situation, Rønning and his linesmen eventually left the ice under the orders of Czechoslovakian officials.

[33] In a desperate attempt at ending the brawl, tournament officials had the arena lights turned off, leaving the players to fight in the dark as the fans whistled loudly in disapproval of the entire situation.

[35] McDonald was incensed by the voting; from the Canadians' perspective, Finland, Czechoslovakia, and Sweden all stood to gain medal position by voting the two teams out, the Americans only promised support if other nations supported Canada, and Sabetzki could barely control his disdain for the Canadians.

[36] After voting to expel the two teams, IIHF officials banned the Soviets from the tournament banquet and medal ceremony but still invited Canada.

[42] CBC commentator Don Cherry was one of the first to float a conspiracy theory that the Soviets had done so as a deliberate attempt to have Canada ejected, and therefore lose a medal.

[48] The IIHF voted to suspend all players involved from competing in international events for 18 months, and all coaches for three years.

[50][51] Waite felt he could not risk being ejected for fighting under the belief that the game would resume, and that the Canadian backup goaltender, Shawn Simpson, was injured.

"[54] At the 1988 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Moscow, Canada and the Soviet Union won the gold and silver medals, respectively, as both teams' rosters featured several players from the 1987 tournament.

[14] Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard had special gold medals made up for the Canadian team.

Imagine how these Russians [sic] engineered this whole thing over there just because they've got a lousy team and were scared to go home finishing in sixth place.

"[61] Winnipeg Jets assistant general manager Mike Smith was in the Vienna airport while the Canadian juniors were waiting for their flight, and took the opportunity to criticize them for their play at the tournament as well as the brawl.