At the conclusion of a playoff series, players and coaches line up and exchange handshakes with their counterparts on the opposing team, and this has been described by commentators as "one of the great traditions in sports". However, there have been rare occasions that individual players have refused to participate, such as Gerry Cheevers who left the ice without shaking hands with any of the Flyers in 1978, and Billy Smith who avoided handshakes as he was particularly passionate about losses. More recent examples of players refusing the handshake include the 1996 playoffs when several Detroit Red Wings players protested the dirty hit by the Colorado Avalanche's Claude Lemieux, and in the 2008 playoffs when Martin Brodeur refused to shake Sean Avery's hand after Avery screened him in an earlier game.