BUFFALO, N.Y. —  February 22, 2007.  It's a night many hockey fans from Buffalo and beyond might never forget.

The heated rivalry between the Sabres and the Ottawa Senators burst into a wild line brawl with two goalies squaring off — Buffalo's Marty Biron against Ottawa's Ray Emery.

"These moments always seem to stick out in people's memory. My son is going to be 14 years old and there's a picture of me and Ray fighting in his bedroom right," Biron said.

And while netminders occasionally drop the gloves in the NHL, the fight became even more remarkable when Emery started trading punches with Sabres tough guy Andrew Peters.

"I may have chewed more than I thought I could by going after Ray Emery," Biron said. "I want to be thankful that he never connected with a solid punch to the face because that would've been the end of me probably."

Two teams grew to dislike each other throughout battles in the regular season and the playoffs.

"We hated each other. The teams hated each other," Peters said. "And it was never anything personal. There was always a mutual respect."

A respect that carries through their bitter battles on the ice. Both men were saddened to learn their former foe, Emery, drowned over the weekend in Lake Ontario at the age of 35.

"That's extremely hard to know that for his friends and for his family, it's going to be a very somber next few days and probably next few years because of losing one of the close ones," Biron said. 

As memorable as that Sabres-Senators brawl has become, neither Peters or Briron ever had the chance to sit down and talk about it with Emery during or after their playing days.

"It's weird because I had envisioned that one day Ray Emery and I would be sitting in the same room reminiscing about the fight I don't like talking about," Peters said.

While that opportunity is now gone, the connection between those three men will remain a part of hockey lore.