GorD

The junior leagues kicked off Thursday so we have officially seen the start of hockey in North America. The western league opened with one game which happened to feature the following fight.



Not much of anything other than two guys coming out of the box from an apparent earlier disagreement.  However, Keegan Lowe did something I just posted about and did it in the first game.  Lowe tallied the rare defenseman Gordie Howe hat trick.  The dude ain't much of a scorer either.  In 212 junior games prior to opening night he had 7 goals.  He is physical though.

As the son of longtime Edmonton player, coach, general manager and current president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe, the Edmonton native and Edmonton Oil King assistant captain could fit in nicely with Carolina some day.  The team that last beat Edmonton the last time they were in the finals.  Kevin passed on his son four times before he was picked directly before the Oilers 5th pick.


QUICK NOTE:

Malkin, Gonchar, Ovechkin and Voracek all had points in their first games in the KHL.  The fun has begun.

Another First

The Fight:




Normally I wouldn't be posting a mediocre fight between members of opposing KHL teams that have no connection to North American hockey.  However, this fight goes beyond a few right hooks.  I have a feeling this season is going to be pretty entertaining with or without the NHL.

I have a fondness for the skill and toughness a hockey player can bring to the ice.  Give me a guy who can score, run you over and throw a punch and I'm happy.  With that being said there is no better irrelevant stat then the Gordie Howe hat trick.  Goal, assist, fight in one game.  Not an extremely common occurrence.

I did some digging and found that including the playoffs there have been 38 Gordie's in the last two seasons in the NHL.  There were about 80 games played in the playoffs last year so double that and add the total number of regular season games and you get 2,620.  Needless to say they don't happen often.  Hell, four teams alone combined for 16 of those.  Watch the AHL and your chances slightly increase.  They have have 62 in the past two years.

Now for some increased insider information.  Of those 100 combined Gordie Howe hat tricks, three times both combatants did it against each other.  Very cool and very rare.

So here we are in a new season with all the European leagues underway.  We've had the first fight of the year and have seen some scraps here and there.  And now we can also say we have the first Gordie Howe hat trick of the season thanks to the fight above.  But wait.  There's more.

In the season of the unpredictable the first Gordie this year was accomplished by both of these players.  If we want to get technical, Lehtera did it first but either way both did it by fighting each other.  Adding more to the story, these teams totaled 8 goals in this game.  Both of these players figured in every one of them.  Lehtera ended with a goal and four assists and Ankudinov a goal and two assists.

What will be next?  In going with the unpredictable I will say an early season goalie fight. 

First of Many

It took slightly longer than I expected, although fighting hasn't been that prevalent in European hockey, but we finally got the first fight of the regular season today.

However, I can say that if I were to predict a fight I would have been way wrong.  I would have said the first would be between either North American players playing in Europe or players with North American training.  Would have been wrong on both accounts.

Here is a little background.  The team that scored was down 6-2 at the time of the goal so apparently the little check in the back set them off.  An instigator was called, as was the cross check and an additional misconduct was handed out.  So if anybody had the first fight of the season coming after a goal, between two Russians, with a total 34 penalty minutes handed out, you win something.  One thing not handed out, game misconducts like in previous seasons.  And they tell me they are trying to get rid of fighting.  It's not even an automatic ejection anymore in most European leagues.  And another thing.  Props to the combatants.  If I didn't know any better it would look like a typical North American type of fight.  They drop the gloves, throw some punches, stay on their feet and both end it on their terms.  And one more fudging thing before I end this.  In some European leagues the penalty for fighting is not fighting major like you see in the NHL, AHL or ECHL.  It is simply fisticuffs.  I propose we use that in all leagues.  It has a nice ring to it.


 

They're Back

Preseason hockey has begun all over the world and in typical preseason fashion, the fighting has been on display. 

We begin with a newcomer to Europe but still an overall dirty player.  Ryan Hollweg takes a preseason run at Duvie Westcott is a match between two different leagues and manages to already get himself suspended. 

Our second video shows former Hershey Bear Evgeni Artukhin in the KHL bloodying his opponent.

Off to England we go for two guys moving over from the AHL for their first seasons in Europe. Both guys should be featured here again during the season.

We end with a classic European player fight where the gloves stay on and it is somewhat like an awkward dance.  Both are former AHLers.