There was a pretty wacky brawl in the ECHL between heated division rivals the Bakersfield Condors and the Ontario Reign. On the call are Kevin Bartl and Ryan Holt and a few seconds of listening will easily let you know that they are the Condors announcers. Hockey brawls are usually pretty great (take note of the current NHL head of discipline’s flying collision with Patrick Roy 3:30 in), but this one between the Condors and Reign was very minor league.

I spent the majority of this video cringing. Not because a whole bunch of guys with sharp skates were punching each other, but that almost every player ridiculously still had their helmet on as the fights were happening, thus making every punch thrown pretty much just self-destructive.

The goalie fight is by far the lowlight in this clip. First, the idea of goalies fighting is ludicrous as they stand on opposite sides of the ice and have zero interaction with each other, but there’s no doubt that they are fantastic and mean that the brawl has just been taken up a notch. Roy vs. Osgood is an example of what a good goalie fight looks like. Unfortunately, only the Reign’s goalie got the memo to take off his helmet as the Condors goalie kept his helmet on, which pretty much made him invincible.

While the fight was poor, the Condors announcers were not much better (even with the clear Ghostbusters reference). Here’s their PBP of the goalie fight which starts 1:50 in,

“Bryan Pitton still with his mask on! Throws lefts and it doesn’t matter. He could have no gear on, Berubbe’s (Reign goalie) got no prayer in that one!”

Yeesh. It’s not hard to get the better of the fight when you are still fully padded with your helmet on when the guy who you are fighting with is helmetless and wearing giant pillows on his legs.

The Reign got the last laugh though, winning the game 5-1 while the Condors are currently in last place.

[Puck Daddy]

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