Canada Day Special: Peace and Love Edition.
A wrote this up last year but never sent it in to Ralph. Still the whole thing holds up pretty well and there’s no real reason not to post it.
Hockey fight escalation:
1: Staredown or cheap shot
2: Shoving match
3: One on one fight
4: Line brawl (5 on 5)
4.5: Goalie fight (6 on 6)
5: Benching clearing brawl
Hockeyfights:
Okay this one starts out as line brawl, there’s a bit of ground and pound action, a few players come off the bench and then things escalate from there. The second half of the video consists of the coaches and the (clearly not very bright) officials trying to restore order all the while angry parents yell some not very nice things. I still have only the vaguest idea what happened. Junior hockey at it’s finest.
Sometimes you just want to get straight to the point. So here’s a very entertaining series of knockouts set to a well known song. Best watched with a beer in one hand, or possibly both hands.
This next fight appears to be from an American minor league but the Gods of Hockey care not which nation offers them sacrifices of blood and teeth. Besides anything that makes me want to watch Slapshot again has to be considered a good thing.
Bit of a slow pace on this one but WOW does the play-by-play announcer SELL it. Lot of raw talent there and he should definitely should be getting a call from the WWE. There’s a second flare up around the seven minute mark which is okayish but doesn’t stand up to the earlier fight. The last half of the video contains no fighting but does offer a few glimpses and chance remarks of minor hockey life.
Fairly standard NHL line brawl.
A much more exciting line brawl. This one’s a good example of hockey fight escalation with a cheap shot turning into a fight and then that fight becoming a line brawl as teammates jump in.
Now here’s an interesting fight or rather a series of fights. It starts off with two players in a one on one fight. This is a ‘fair’ fight but it quickly clear that one of the players is out matched by his opponent. The underdog puts on a good fight but goes down hard and hits his head on the ice. This causes enough bad blood between the teams to trigger a line brawl on the next play. As the line brawl starts to die down the two goaltenders decide to confront each other and put on a show for the fans.
One of the more interesting events in the history of international hockey.
The Spirit of Hockey invades other sports! Actual fight is from 2:00-5:00 but the first two minutes add the context to the story. Good reminder that bench clearing brawls are more common in baseball and even football than in hockey as most hockey fight rarely escalate past the line brawl level.
Non-hockey Canada Stuff:
Competitive eater Furious Pete attempts to commit suicide by shotgunning twenty of this author’s favourite off brand energy drinks.
I’m told this is a common problem.
I’ll end with this moment in Canadian history. This was a lot less funny than I remember it but one of the youtube comments caught my eye.
“Best part, the punk was the son of a millionaire and had his life handed to him on a silver platter. Hypocritical shitface.”
Now I can’t really fact check that sort of thing too easily twenty years after the fact but it sure does ring a bell or two, don’t it?
So in closing keep your head up, your stick on the ice and remember
If France can survive the Reign of Terror.
Canada can survive the Reign of Tumblr.
-Wolfman out.