It looked like a scene more fit for the movie 'Goon' than an actual professional hockey game, but sometimes life is pretty good at imitating art.
Players from the Fort Wayne Komets and Colorado Eagles got involved in a bizarre pregame fracas prior to Game 2 of their ECHL playoff series on Sunday in Colorado. The ECHL -- a mid-level pro league a step below the AHL -- is typically a league that lends itself to weirdness, but this incident was wild even by their standards.
Those pregame extracurriculars started with both teams lining up across from one another, exchanging shots at the other like it was a Revolutionary War style battle. Without any officials or supervision in sight, things quickly escalated into fisticuffs.
At first, it was two guys squaring up as everyone else gathered around them to spectate in the style of a schoolyard fight. Then, others joined in. It was a mess ... a glorious, chaotic mess.
The Komets apparently weren't thrilled that their goaltender, Michael Houser, was injured after being run by Colorado's Ryan Harrison in overtime of Game 1. They carried that anger over into the warmups of Game 2, and nobody was around to make sure things didn't get out of hand.
As you can see, things promptly got out of hand.
But, in classic hockey fashion, the players did their own policing. The fights were broken up, the discarded equipment was sorted out, and players casually returned to their posts and then played a hockey game. Business as usual, I suppose.
