Our goalie suspended + top d-man for fighting...

[wrangler 157]

Anyone that acts like an asshole on the ice is an asshole, no matter what he does off the ice.

Now that you bring it up, I never could understand how a guy could be a thug on the ice in the NHL, yet other players would go on and on about what a nice guy he is. I have the same problem you do with that concept.

It reminds me of Sunday religion.

[goaliemanshark 6]

I got cross checked from behind pretty hard and my helmet skimmed the boards a few weeks ago. If I had been an inch or two closer to the boards it would have been all bad!

Yesterday I went to the rink early and the guy who cross checked me was playing. I watched him chrip our divisions pest, then watched them slash eachother. Then he punched the local pest in the head and got ejected. As he walked off the ice he looked at me and said "you're the guy I cheap shotted last week, I feel bad about that. I'm sorry"

Tremendous respect for the apology. But he is still a douche, at least on the ice.

[Bimmer 0]

oh yeah he did, landed 3 solid punches right at the guy's forehead LOL

Forehead? Seems like that would have hurt him more than whoever he was hitting...

[CAmmon 2]

1 game for fighting in our league. At least your players didn't get suspended for fighting each other (which I've sadly seen before).

I've seen it. We had a player fight with the captain about playing defense. Afterwords he left and we started with a delay of game penalty. He was back the next game.

[phomp 0]

Depends...

In our final game of the summer our teammate got into a little fight, which he got 0 games. He didn't care because he wont be playing next season so he was not worried about it anyway.

What happened was it was near the end of the game and he was wacking at a loose puck in front of the net at which point one of the other teams players cross checks him from behind into the net and proceeds to give him a shot to the head (accidental or not, do not know). Everyone crowds the area and scuffles and I see my him (me and my him are into wrestling and bjj) holding the leg of the guy who cross checked him.

As our guy starts getting up the guy starts calling him names and saying he would mess him up in the parking lot, blah blah blah, so our teammate completes the single leg which takes the guy right up into the air (went up pretty high) and slams him to the ground and puts him in side control where he face washes him. The guy couldnt get up until our teammate let him up, ref couldnt really pull it apart either.

As they get up the guy skates away from our teammate really quick and then proceeds to talk shit (not when they were close), our teammate just laughed at him and was ejected, and the other guy got ejected as well (and got more penalty minutes).

It is the 2nd time I have seen him use wrestling/bjj in a scuffle.. lol. The other time was worse and yet he still got 0 games for it because the other guy did something I guess the league percieved as more dangerous as he actually got a suspension. The guy on the other team sluflooted one guy and wacked another guy (who is older) with an elbow at which point our teammate took him down and put him in side control - discreetly hitting him back with an elbow that made his nose bleed.

The other guy got suspended and the guy on our team got nothing.... and generally in our league, fighting is at least 5, headbutting (no matter how light) is 5, etc...

It is not like the guy on our team is a hothead either, this summer he had 0 incidents up until that game and 4 penalty minutes over the season, over last winter season he had 0 incidents and 6 minutes over the season....

Like 4-5 years ago we had one guy get into a big fight where the guy on the other team was scratching at our guys eyes in the scuffle so our guy took off his glove and socked him right in the nose and it was bleeding quite a bit. They both got a full season for that... same league.

[pittu 15]

Now that you bring it up, I never could understand how a guy could be a thug on the ice in the NHL, yet other players would go on and on about what a nice guy he is. I have the same problem you do with that concept.

I think it's called a paycheck , lol

J/k, I know what you mean.....

It reminds me of Sunday religion.

[hunterphfr 12]

1 game in my league, 3 "major incidents" and then you get the rest of the season off. Irony is you get a game for fighting and usually you can get a game for not so politely telling the ref what you think of him, his officiating or what he can do. A teammate once got 8 games, 1 for fighting and the other 7 one game at a time for talking to the ref on the way off the ice. Generally tracking and enforcement is loose at best.

A rink 4 hours to the south posts a list consisting of the player, the infraction, the infraction date, # of games and the date they can return to the ice. Abuse of an official there can get you 15-30 day suspensions.

Played in a league in Calgary 15 years ago that was plagued with fighting. Changed the rule from just a game to a game & $100 payable before you could return to the ice. Fights virtually disappeared instantly.

[hampshirepuck 2]

in my summer league, it was an automatic ejection with a game suspension, personally i believe fighting is just part of the game, if you get into a fight with somebody give them a beer at the end of the game. haha

[black hills tj 5]

I haven't verified it yet, but the other day I heard that my league is an ejection, 20 dollar fine, and sit a game for your first. Not sure what happens if you push your luck any further than the first one.

[seaner7633 2]

I think the thrust of his point was that it doesn't belong on the ice -- fighting, that is. I don't think any of us want to actually go out to the parking lot to fight.

How would you handle the following situation then: Let's say you are a defenseman, and the play has moved quickly out of your zone and is barreling through the neutral zone. The reason you've not taken off with the play, is to keep an eye on an opponent who had been felled in the corner, and is now floating towards your goalie in his blind spot. Opponent cross-checks your goalie in the head before you can say anything, and before you can intercept him. Refs didn't see it, and neither bench did.

How do you handle that? This is a real situation that played out in our beer league last season.

I'm not asking in a snarky tone, nor am I baiting anyone. I am seriously asking the folks who feel fighting doesn't belong in beer leagues, how they would handle this situation.

[wrangler 157]

What did the refs do? What did the league do? What's the police attitude? Did anybody seriously talk to this guy?

I don't see that there's anyplace in the league for that kind of behavior, and you've got at least two witnesses. I think a fight might work against your credibility. An objective calm reporting of the incident may be trusted more than an account from a angry person who was fighting. It's hard to say. I don't think a fight, complete with penalties and suspensions, will help your team.

But -- there's not always a good solution to every problem.

[chippa13 1844]

The minutes and suspensions won't help his team but you can't let a guy get away with that on any teammate. When you see something like that happen to your teammate, your first thought isn't, "gee, that was bad, I'd best report this to someone."

[seaner7633 2]

What did the refs do? What did the league do? What's the police attitude? Did anybody seriously talk to this guy?

I don't see that there's anyplace in the league for that kind of behavior, and you've got at least two witnesses. I think a fight might work against your credibility. An objective calm reporting of the incident may be trusted more than an account from a angry person who was fighting. It's hard to say. I don't think a fight, complete with penalties and suspensions, will help your team.

But -- there's not always a good solution to every problem.

The refs did not see it, because the play was long gone from the zone. The only three people that knew it happened, were the defenseman, the opponent, and the goalie who lay in a heap.

[wrangler 157]

The minutes and suspensions won't help his team but you can't let a guy get away with that on any teammate. When you see something like that happen to your teammate, your first thought isn't, "gee, that was bad, I'd best report this to someone."

I understand. I don't claim that I react the same way most folks do. Law school can do that to people. I can't have the idea of hitting someone occur to me without the idea of getting arrested, and the thought of the problems that would cause, and the potential penalties.

[Axxion89 32]

How would you handle the following situation then: Let's say you are a defenseman, and the play has moved quickly out of your zone and is barreling through the neutral zone. The reason you've not taken off with the play, is to keep an eye on an opponent who had been felled in the corner, and is now floating towards your goalie in his blind spot. Opponent cross-checks your goalie in the head before you can say anything, and before you can intercept him. Refs didn't see it, and neither bench did.

How do you handle that? This is a real situation that played out in our beer league last season.

I'm not asking in a snarky tone, nor am I baiting anyone. I am seriously asking the folks who feel fighting doesn't belong in beer leagues, how they would handle this situation.

Fighting doesn't belong in beer league for stupid things like pokechecking a puck when the goalie has it or a shoving match in front of the net, things that are trivial. If some guy did as you described and I was the only one who saw it, I'd confront the guy and tell him to watch his ass and warn him and the second he touches the puck or is along the boards with it, I'm coming full steam at him and what happens after that happens. I can say I lost control going to fast into the boards and panicked, I can say I was making a move for the puck, I can essentially cover my ass. If I were to just drop my gloves and wail into him like a mad man or break a stick over his skull, then I'm going to jail and getting sued.

While I can still get in a lot of trouble doing as I said above, the chance is less likely since I can categorize it as either an accident or a part of the game. I am curious to see as to how you/the defensemen handled the situation and what came about after you/they did whatever they did.

[Chadd 916]

A guy that subbed for us got drilled in a similarly cheap manner. He is pressing charges against the guy that did it to recover medical and legal costs. There were a couple guys that witnessed it and they have all filed affidavits with the local police regarding what they saw.

[seaner7633 2]

Fighting doesn't belong in beer league for stupid things like pokechecking a puck when the goalie has it or a shoving match in front of the net, things that are trivial. If some guy did as you described and I was the only one who saw it, I'd confront the guy and tell him to watch his ass and warn him and the second he touches the puck or is along the boards with it, I'm coming full steam at him and what happens after that happens. I can say I lost control going to fast into the boards and panicked, I can say I was making a move for the puck, I can essentially cover my ass. If I were to just drop my gloves and wail into him like a mad man or break a stick over his skull, then I'm going to jail and getting sued.

While I can still get in a lot of trouble doing as I said above, the chance is less likely since I can categorize it as either an accident or a part of the game. I am curious to see as to how you/the defensemen handled the situation and what came about after you/they did whatever they did.

Here is how the situation played out followed by some of my thoughts, and WHY I decided to handle it the way I did:

For starters, let me point out a few things and add some context. I am the defenseman in this story. The league we were in at the time was an A league. I've played against this player before and never really had issues in the league, but there had been an incident with him about a year and a half prior in an iron man tournament, where he felt we had chopped his goalie, so he warned us that he would return the favor to our goalie, who is the same goalie on our team in the league. That was the extent of the incident in the past.

So, as stated, I'm keeping an eye on him as he's getting too close to my goalie, He got to him before I could intercept, and cross-checks him in the side of his mask. He was only a second ahead of me, so I am almost instantly upon him, and i give him a shove in his shoulder/back to knock him away from my goalie. He stumbled and turned to me, and dropped his gloves. We were not nose-to-nose. There was a good 5-6 feet between us, so it wasn't one of those instant grab-eachother and swing nonsensically kind of bouts. As I said, he dropped his gloves. I immediately drop mine and assessing that I'm wearing a cage, and he has just a half-shield, I remove my helmet and toss it aside as we get square. Almost instantly, the refs step in and grab us before we could even lock up and throw a punch.

We were given 2 minutes each for roughing.

After that, he didn't go near our goalie, nor had anything to say. I made sure I was aware of his location for the rest of the game, but it seemed to me that he was no longer a threat, and our goalie was fine, so I saw no need to chase him down.

Some questions you may have and my thoughts (please remember these are not justifications, these are just my thoughts, as they went through my head in this instant):

Q. Why didn't you leave it to the authorities, like the officials and league director?

A. Because I was the only one who saw it go down. The officials aren't, and can't call anything that neither of them saw. The league isn't going to discipline someone based on an unconfirmed complain, without an official's recommendation. Secondly, it all happened in a fraction of seconds, so even though I processed the fact that no one else saw it, there wasn't much analyzing going on. This person hit my goalie, and I was already right there because I was moving in myself to try to stop it before it happened. Third, I am the captain of my team, and I love my guys. We are all close, and have been together for years, so it wasn't just my goalie that got hit, it was one of my best friends. Lastly, I wasn't fueled by rage or revenge; my instincts were to get there and protect. I arrived right as the contact was made. I had no way of knowing what this guy was going to do. He may have intended to continue pummeling my goalie. I didn't know, and wasn't going to find out. My initial shove was the "F-U!" act from me. Once the gloves dropped, I became very focused.

Q. Were you intending to fight the guy?

A. Yesno....Noyes... I really just wanted to knock him to the ice with my initial shove, and then just keep him pinned down, and maybe face wash him or something. Just something to let him know I saw what he did and that he did not get away with it.

Q. Why on earth did you take your helmet off?

A. I felt it was the right thing to do. Even though he hit my goalie, it was MY shove that served as the invitation to fight, even if that wasn't my intention. So, you don't invite someone to fight while wearing cage. Yes, the guy was an a-hole for hitting the goalie, but I'm still going to take care of it honorably (as honorably as a beer league fight can be, i mean). I definitely believe in "the code", and not in a super-awesome-pro-fighter kind of way; just, doing the right thing, be it on the ice, off the ice or wherever.

Q. What'd your team do afterwards?

A. Well none of them saw the cross-check, so they were just asking me what happened, and busting my balls because it wasn't but 5 minutes before the incident that I had delivered a between-period speech on how the game might get chippy because we were leading, and to stay calm and not retaliate to any BS.

Q. Did you tell the refs what happened?

A. Yes. When they heard what the guy did, they just about apologized for stopping the fight, as said they would have let us go if they had known. That is more than likely just lip-service. If they had seen it, they would have been in there so fast, because they know how I, and my team, would react.

Q. Why not file charges?

A. Our goalie was rattled, but OK. I didn't think it was enough to warrant going outside the rink. Neither did the goalie, or any of our players.

Q. What'd the league do about it?

A. Nothing. No one saw it except me, and my goalie.

Q. What happened next time you played that team?

A. We never played them again actually. Didn't have them the rest of the regular season, and didn't cross paths in the playoffs. The following season was the summer session, and most of us took off. We've reassembled now in the B division, and that team is still in the A.

Q. You ever see that guy again?

A. Yes, at a stick & puck session during the day. I went to the rink on my lunch to get a skate in (not full gear, just time to skate and work the puck. no scrimmaging allowed). He was there with his little kids. His are a little older than mine (which are 4 and 2). I asked him what age he go them on the ice and we chatted about that for minute or two. In the parking lot, he told me he still had his kids' skates from when they were younger, and to let him know if I wanted them. The next week, we were playing pickup on lunch, and were on the same team. Chatted about NHL a little bit. My goalie absolutely HATES that I talked to the guy, and gives me grief about it still to this day.

Q. Do you always do this weird 3rd person Q&A thing?

A. Never, but it seemed an entertaining way to touch on all the points of the story, and what I wanted to say.

Thanks for reading!

-Sean

[wrangler 157]

You didn't mention you were right there after the hit. I would have shoved the guy away, too. After that, it's up to him to figure out what to do. I don't think I would have dropped my gloves, probably just shoved him away if he came at me after that.

I'm not judging you, or saying what you should have done. That's just how I would react -- right, wrong, or whatever.

[seaner7633 2]

You didn't mention you were right there after the hit. I would have shoved the guy away, too. After that, it's up to him to figure out what to do. I don't think I would have dropped my gloves, probably just shoved him away if he came at me after that.

I'm not judging you, or saying what you should have done. That's just how I would react -- right, wrong, or whatever.

I didn't sense a judging tone in your response, but thanks for stating that.