Eric Adelson wrote a feature on Tie Domi for ESPN The Magazine. He sent along these thoughts as Domi prepared to return from his eight-game suspension.

What makes Tie Domi tick? The thrill of the fight.

Just ask Domi's old nemesis, Bob Probert. The two met way back in 1989, when Probert stood unchallenged as the league's best fighter. Domi, in his first NHL game as a Maple Leaf, dropped the gloves with Red Wings Joe Kocur and Kevin McClelland. Then Domi, who's charitably listed at 5'10", skated over to the 6'3" Probert. "I want a shot at the title!" he yelled.

Probert laughed, returned to the bench and thought, "Who is this guy?"

A rivalry was born. Domi got dealt to the Rangers, paid his dues and bided his time, waiting to battle Probert. Finally, in 1992, the two dropped the gloves in Madison Square Garden.

Probert did not expect Domi, who is ambidextrous, to come at him from the left. "I'm more powerful with the right," Domi says, "But quicker with the left." Domi opened a cut over Probert's left eye. The referees stepped in, and Domi skated away grinning. Before he left the ice, Domi strapped an imaginary championship belt around his waist. The crowd at MSG roared.

And, despite warnings from the NHL, Probert and Domi met again just months later. That night, Probert took his first shift just after the opening face-off. The Garden crowd began to rumble. Domi then felt a tap at his shoulder. Before the next face-off, Domi lined up beside Probert. "Well," Probert shouted over the din. "Let's get it over with."

That was almost 10 years ago. Probert, 36, rarely does battle anymore. Most of the time, he'd rather not bother. "As you get older, you lose a little bit of that fight," says Probert, now with the Blackhawks. "It becomes more of a job."

And it can also become more of a humiliation. No hockey player grows up dreaming of penalty minutes. And no matter how much triumph fighting can bring, no hockey player wants to be considered a goon. "Sometimes you want to play the game," Probert says, "and you don't want to be sitting in the penalty box." But enforcers who try to change their stripes usually don't last. As noted hockey hothead Don Cherry likes to say, "A crusher who becomes a rusher soon becomes an usher."

So it's no coincidence that quite a few fighters retire early, or even give themselves over to drugs. Probert's cocaine problems came at the height of his career -- when he was arguably the league's second-most-popular player (after Wayne Gretzky). Probert fought his way back from drug abuse, but never fought with the same passion again.

Domi, who turns 32 on November 1, is different. He has never had a drinking problem. He has never been in trouble with the law. He has a wife and three children. He is heavily involved in the Toronto community. Put simply, he still gets his fix with his fists. "I still like doing it," he says over oatmeal at the Toronto Westin. "I still get that itch. And the day I don't is the day I'm hangin' 'em up."

Thing is, Domi is the only enforcer in the league -- including Probert -- who could stop dropping the gloves and still earn a place on his team. He is one of the fastest skaters on the Maple Leafs, and his scoring output has inched up steadily since he returned to Toronto in 1995. Domi does not feel like he has to injure in order to eat. But even after getting vilified (and suspended) for knocking out New Jersey defenseman Scott Niedermayer in last spring's Eastern Conference semis, Domi won't change a thing. He simply doesn't want to. "I brought [my reputation] upon myself," he says, "and I don't mind at all. Nobody can take that away from me."

So what happened in Probert vs. Domi II? Domi explains it this way: "It looked like he hit me and I went down. But I was just tired." After the tussle, Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman stood up on the Detroit bench and strapped on that imaginary belt, in Probert's behalf.

A decade later, Tie Domi is the last old-school enforcer standing.

Eric Adelson is an associate editor at ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at eric.adelson@espnmag.com.