By Allan Muir

It’s been a long time since fight fans have been treated to a good, old-fashioned bench-clearing brawl, but we got one on Wednesday night after the buzzer sounded to end Game 4 of the heavily hyphenated Baie-Comeau Drakkar-Blainville-Boisbriand Armada QMJHL semifinal playoff series.

This one started not with a bang, but with a gesture. Though it’s hard to tell from the video, Cédric Paquette of the victorious Armada taunted the Drakkar’s Raphaël Bussières with a dismissive wave as he headed off the ice. No surprise that it was not well received. As the two started jostling, the Armada players who had been skating toward winning goaltender Étienne Marcoux changed direction and headed to the scuffle. The Drakkar then hopped the boards in search of dance partners. The Armada obliged, and the next thing you know, we have a full-on brawl, highlighted by all four goalies squaring off.

Read More…

It was a big night for the Everett Silvertips, who managed to claw back from a pair of deficits to earn a 4-3 win over the Seattle Thunderbirds that pulled them within one point of their rivals for seventh place with just three games left in the Western Hockey League season.

With so much on the line, it was no surprise to see emotions boil over after Everett took the lead with less than three minutes remaining. Evan Wardley of the T-Birds took a charging major, leading to a wild melee to the left of Everett stopper Austin Lotz. When Lotz ventured out of his net to join the fray, Seattle’s Brandon Glover roared down the ice to even things up.

Here’s where it got goofy. Linesman Ryan Gibbons tried to collar Lotz, but that just allowed Lotz a few free shots. Gibbons then tried to correct his mistake by stepping in between the two. That didn’t work out too well either, with both goalies all but climbing over him to get at each other.

Glover picked up the instigator and the game misconduct, but that probably just made the win a little sweeter.

By Allan Muir

At last we know where Alexander Semin learned to play the bongos.

We’re still trying to figure out all the details on this one. Best we can tell, this clip is from the end of a lopsided game between Tyumen and Kazan from the 2013 Russian Winter Student Games, and it appears that the Tyumen girls didn’t take too kindly to having the score run up on them. Punches are thrown, the benches clear, adults pour onto the ice and chaos ensues. Funny stuff.

By Allan Muir

A guide to this morning’s must-read hockey stories:

• In Philly, they’re calling it a huge bolt of energy. But did Zac Rinaldo go too far in his fight with Tampa Bay’s B.J. Crombeen? Looks like it to me.

• Mike Richards earned himself a Gordie Howe hat trick, but it was Brandon Dubinsky’s boarding major that will be the topic of conversation after L.A.’s 4-2 win in Columbus.

• The Washington Capitals gave away Nicklas Backstrom garden gnomes to fans and two points to the visiting Maple Leafs on Tuesday night. The Caps now “boast” a league-worst 2-7-1 mark after their 3-2 loss. There already are calls for Adam Oates’ job, but I have to believe that GM George McPhee makes a personnel move before canning the rookie coach.

• Maybe the Leafs should barnstorm the rest of the season because they’re historically (and hysterically) bad at home.

• I mean, yeah, it has the makings of an epic steal, but was the Phil Kessel trade really the best in Boston sports history?

• SI.com’s own Adrian Dater has the latest on the Ryan O’Reilly contract talks.

• David Clarkson scored twice in a 3-1 win over the Rangers, giving him seven on the season. Maybe that 30-goal campaign wasn’t a fluke after all.

Read More…

By Allan Muir

One day after an American Hockey League brawl led to an epic center ice tilt between netminders Dustin Tokarski and Eddie Pasquale comes this video of another goaltender-enhanced donnybrook.

This one involved the Edmonton Oil Kings and Lethbridge Hurricanes of the Western Hockey League. The Oil Kings, a Memorial Cup favorite, had run up a 7-1 lead in the third period, creating the perfect storm for hockey hostilities. A cheap shot delivered by Lethbridge’s Josh Derko on Edmonton’s Curtis Lazar with just over two minutes remaining instigated a line brawl that quickly drew Laurent Brossoit and Ty Rimmer to the faceoff circle.

Brossoit, a highly regarded pick of the Calgary Flames, earns a slight edge in this one, but Rimmer (in red) gives a good account of himself.

For more of the NHL variety, SI.com has this gallery with video links.

By Allan Muir

Even though we here at Home Ice are proud, old-school neanderthals when it comes to fighting, we don’t stop down for any old tussle. Let’s face it. Too many of them these days are glorified wrasslin’ matches, or are interrupted too soon by the officials.

But a goalie fight is always worth our time. It’s a rare spectacle provoked by team honor and loyalty. And while most are as eventful as those intermission inflatable sumo gags, every now and then we get a beauty.

And this is one of those beauties.

Read More…

The Red Wings wanted a quick spark and Jordin Tootoo provided it with his fists. (Kirk Irwin/Getty Imafges)

By Allan Muir

It took all of three seconds from the opening puck drop for Detroit’s Jordin Tootoo to drop the gloves with Jared Boll of the Blue Jackets on Monday night.

Three seconds.

Now, tempers can fray quickly in the NHL, but it’s hard for anyone to work up a good froth in that span, especially when the guy you’re baiting is stationed 30 feet away on the opposite side of the face-off circle. But that seemed like a leisurely, deeply considered pace compared to the single tick it took Joe Finley and Matt Martin of the Islanders to call out Pierre-Cedric Labrie and B.J. Crombeen of the Lightning earlier in the day. Or even the two seconds it took for Pittsburgh’s Tanner Glass to summon Rangers forward Arron Asham on Sunday.

Read More…

Not all hockey fights are the same and this complex issue deserves more than a “yes” or “no” answer. (Terry Lee/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

There’s lots to chew on in the annual NHLPA/CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada Players’ Poll, the results of which were made public over the weekend. Pavel Datsyuk was pretty much acclaimed as the NHL’s best player, Zdeno Chara the best defenseman, and Henrik Lundqvist the best goalie. The players say they think the Canucks are overrated, the Blues are underrated, that they’d love to play for the Blackhawks, they love playing at Montreal’s Bell Centre, and  the Penguins Dan Bylsma is the coach they’d most like to play for.

There’s lots more, of course, but let’s stop to consider the issues-oriented questions in the poll, namely those on fighting and the instigator rule. There are some serious problems here, and they start with the questions themselves.

Read More…

It’s no secret enforcers like Wade Belak and Derek Boogaard have one of sports’ most physically and emotionally demanding jobs. (Lynne Sladky/AP)

By Stu Hackel

With today’s report in The Toronto Star that Wade Belak suffered from depression, we have a possible explanation for an event that has shocked many who knew him and alarmed many more. Belak, found dead in a Toronto hotel on Wednesday, is the third NHL enforcer to die since May. His death has been reported by some as a suicide, the same talk that surrounded the death of Rick Rypien in mid-August. Derek Boogaard’s case was ruled accidental, due to a lethal mixture of alcohol and pain killers.

Belak had just retired, but some connection between his occupation as a hockey tough guy and the closely spaced deaths of the other two enforcers has been sought.

“I think sometimes we get caught up in generalizations,” Allain Roy, Rypien’s agent, told John Branch of The New York Times today. “We have three sad instances where we have three young men who struggled with their lives off the ice. Whether their role played a piece in it, I think it’s almost impossible for anybody to draw that straight line through it — to say, all right, they were enforcers, and this is why this happened to them.”

Read More…

Fighting is just one form of neurologically dangerous behavior the NHL allows. (Bill Greenblatt-UPI/Landov)

By Stu Hackel

Will the recent class action suit by former NFL players – who allege that their league trained players to hit with their heads, failed to properly treat them for concussions and tried to conceal for decades any links between football and brain injuries — have an impact on the National Hockey League? One player agent thinks so.

Massachusetts-based Kent Hughes, whose NHL clients include Patrice Bergeron, Peter Mueller and Matthew Lombardi, who have suffered severe concussions, told Mathias Brunet of La Presse that the lawsuit “opens up a can of worms” for the NHL. “I feel that the NHL will closely monitor what happens in the NFL,” said Hughes.

A big part of that can of worms has to do with fighting in the NHL.
Read More…