I was really struggling to come up with a topic for this month’s News Watch column.
But so many of the topics were boring — provincial politics, federal politics. And then there’s U.S. politics, but really who wants to read one more article about Donald Trump?
Then I went online and saw the now-infamous video from Unity of fans in the stands getting into a big brawl at the end of a hockey game.
Thank you very much Unity, Saskatchewan. Those fools in the stands just handed me my topic for this week’s column.
The video, posted to Facebook, was from the immediate aftermath of the game between the Wilkie Outlaws and the Biggar Nationals, a game the Outlaws had won 5-2 to win the Sask. West Hockey League title.
What happened in the stands looked like a really bad WWE Battle Royal match, with people beating each other and wrestling each other to the ground. It also looked like many were trying to step in to try to break up the fights and keep people from getting at one another.
Meanwhile the players on the ice were watching the scene. They were probably thinking the same thing I was: how strange it was for these fights to happen in the stands instead of on the ice where they belong!
The funniest comment I found on Facebook was from someone comparing the scene to one of Trump’s political rallies.
Anyway, the two hockey teams issued their statements on Facebook denouncing what happened and disclaiming responsibility. The Outlaws went a step further to say no one from the town of Wilkie was involved in the fights that they were aware of.
It’s unfortunate for the teams involved. The players’ reputations were now being dragged down into the mud because of what went on in the stands.
These “fans,” and I use the term loosely, had turned this game into probably the most infamous SWHL game of all time. The video of the fights in the stands was a top story on all the provincial media outlets, most of whom had ignored the league all season.
Another video that made the news surfaced from the now-infamous Flin Flon Bombers -Weyburn Red Wings playoff hockey game a little while ago up in Flin Flon.
The Bombers won the game and in a local tradition, a moose leg was tossed on the ice, similar, I gather, to what happens when the octopus is tossed on the ice in Detroit.
Unfortunately, one of the Weyburn players did not know much about this tradition. He picked up the moose leg. One of the Bombers’ players noticed this and immediately charged down the ice, and that was it. All heck immediately broke loose and a bench-clearing brawl resulted on the ice, with Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” playing on the loudspeakers in the background.
For some reason, this video also went viral, and this became a story on provincial media as well. This brawl actually made the CBC News. When I saw it I couldn’t believe it. Here was a league I’ve covered from time to time, the SJHL, making the CBC News.
I couldn’t have been prouder. As they say, any publicity is good publicity, eh?
What I find interesting is that people are reacting as if this sort of thing has never happened before in hockey.
I have some big breaking news for all of you: crazy stuff happens at hockey games.
I can point to a few examples in my own experience. I remember, for example, the time when the Battleford Beaver Blues roared from behind to beat the Spiritwood Timberwolves 6-5 to win the Saskatchewan Prairie Hockey League title.
But right as the buzzer sounded to end to game, a full-on brawl erupted between the two teams. From what I gathered from people afterwards, rumour had it that one of the Battleford players was kind of gloating and goading the Spiritwood players on the bench, and that might have set it off. Still, the Timberwolves came away looking like sore losers. They literally sulked off the ice, not even shaking hands after the game.
I can point to some crazy examples involving the Battlefords North Stars as well, like a particularly wild, fight-filled game years ago against Kindersley in which it seemed like the North Stars were repeatedly getting the shaft from the refs.
Head coach Ken Pearson was so mad at the refereeing that he got up, picked up a bunch of hockey sticks, and hurled all of them right onto the ice! He got himself thrown out of the game.
A couple of years ago I was at a game versus Yorkton in which three simultaneous fights broke out between players of both teams. Players were suspended and even coach Kevin Hasselberg was automatically ejected, by rule. I referred to it as “Friday Night at the Fights.”
I thought I would mention all this because it seems like people are seeing these videos and freaking out, and acting all surprised to see this stuff happen in hockey.
I guess folks have this image of hockey being a “family” sport, and they put this game on a pedestal as our “national game.”
No doubt, this is part of what is driving people to clean the game up. The sport itself is in kind of an existential crisis at the moment, with recent talk of concussions, and about clamping down on fighting at the highest level, the NHL.
The SJHL has been even more vigilant about it over the past number of years and have imposed some extremely tough rules against fighting. Basically, it’s one fight and you’re gone.
Yet all the rules in the world didn’t stop any of the mayhem that was captured on video from Flin Flon. And it could not have prevented the fiasco in Unity, which was entirely the fault of these out-of-control spectators. Now the talk out of the SWHL is about beefing up security at games next year. I hope so.
These leagues are doing what they should do to clamp down on these issues. In a weird sort of way, though, I’m kind of glad to see this rock ‘em, sock ‘em stuff still show up occasionally.
It’s a good reminder to folks that this isn’t the opera or a Broadway show people are paying tickets for. This isn’t high culture we are talking about.
It’s hockey, and like it or not, nonsense is part of the game. “I went to the fights, and a hockey game broke out!”
