We had a rather wild brawl down in the jungle.
The Fort Wayne Komets faced off against the Jacksonville IceMen this week in the ECHL, affectionately called "the jungle" by Spittin Chiclets who have shared the following video, and things got really crazy between these two squads. Keep in mind that fighting is much more common in the ECHL where players are often desperately trying to get the attention of teams in the National Hockey LEague or even the American Hockey League, but even for the ECHL this was a pretty crazy one.
It would be unfair to call this one a bench clearing brawl as the players never really left the bench, however it would also be very disingenuous to suggest that the benches were not at all involved. A fight that broke out in front of the Komets bench turned into a wild brawl on the ice but also saw members of the Komets getting involved from the bench itself given that they were so close to the action on the ice at the time. You could tell that this was a difficult one for the officials on the ice as they struggled to get control of the game as well as struggled to get control of the players who were involved in this one.
Unfortunately for the officials they were severely outnumbered in this one and it was a long time before they could re-establish control of the game, and like the broadcast crew pointed out you can't really blame the zebras on the ice. The brawl resembled something more akin to the type of action that you would expect to see in a WWE wrestling match than at a hockey game, but one thing is certain the fans in attendance certainly did not mind one bit.
The crowd roared with excitement throughout the entire brawl and given the level of physicality that was involved I can hardly blame them. You simply don't see this kind of stuff in the National Hockey League anymore, at least not except on extremely rare occasions, and for many long time fans its nice to see some good old time hockey.
