More fuel to the fire...

The Lethbridge Herald
Front, Monday, March 7, 2005, p. a1
[By TREVOR KENNEY Lethbridge Herald Lethbridge Hurricanes head coach Lindsay Hofford prefers to look ahead, not behind but the ugly brawl that took place Saturday night in Medicine]

Kenney, Trevor

By TREVOR KENNEY

Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge Hurricanes head coach Lindsay Hofford prefers to look ahead, not behind but the ugly brawl that took place Saturday night in Medicine Hat was, in his words "gutless."

The game, a 5-2 loss, cost the Hurricanes in the Central Division standings but more importantly, it robbed the team of its leading scorer and may cost defenceman Brennan Chapman much more.

"He's got a broken nose in two places and a crushed sinus cavity so he's got to see a plastic surgeon and then (another) surgeon to see if they can build his sinus back up," Hofford said of Chapman, injured in a fight with Tigers captain Steve Marr.

"When a negative situation like last night takes place you can focus on the negatives and let that linger and affect you long term but we're going to get past this and take some positives and come out of this a better hockey team," Hofford said Sunday, still upset after watching Marr beat on the defenceless Chapman.

An intense, playoff-style game turned ugly late in the third period when Colton Yellow Horn, the 'Canes leading point-getter and the WHL's third-leading scorer, was kneed by Tigers defenceman Gord Baldwin. Yellow Horn had to be helped off the ice and did not return while Baldwin was given a five-minute major and game misconduct.

After that, eight fights erupted in the last seven minutes of the game, including a line brawl that had both goaltenders involved at centre ice and the fateful Chapman-Marr matchup.

"Everything up until the line brawl was just normal - things that happen in a hockey game," Hofford said when asked if the Tigers went out of their way to play dirty hockey. "The knee-on-knee hit, that happens in hockey. It's unfortunate but things like that happen.

"What was abnormal was the line brawl. At that point, I felt their guys were on the ice to hurt our guys. When Ben Maxwell drops his gloves at the drop of the puck and skates to get after Michal Gulasi, then you knew what they were out there for."

What bothered Hofford more was the circumstance behind Chapman's injury.

"With Chapman and Marr, here's a player who obviously has a size advantage (Marr is listed at six-foot-two, 207 pounds to Chapman's five-foot-10, 196 pounds) and is a more experienced fighter who gets a guy down and then continues to hit him eight more times," Hofford said.

"As far as I'm concerned that's a gutless act and if I'm the coach of that player, I suspend him myself before the league does anything."

The Tiger crowd's reaction to what was happening on the ice also didn't sit well with Hofford. Booing both Yellow Horn and Chapman as they were helped off the ice and cheering Baldwin when he was banished from the game, he said, was out of line.

"I've never seen anything like that and it was completely classless," Hofford said.

"It was an intense game and rivalries are good, you want to see teams playing hard but to boo somebody when they are obviously in difficulty, a kid trying to make a career, that's uncalled for and embarrassing."

When reminded about a situation at the Enmax Centre earlier in the season that saw Hurricanes' David Murray elbow Tigers' Trevor Glass to the ice, eventually leading to Glass' removal from the game on stretcher, Hofford noted how Hurricane fans cheered Glass in support.

"Our fans have a lot more class, obviously."


Category: Front Page; News
Uniform subject(s): Sports and leisure
Length: Medium, 521 words

© 2005 The Lethbridge Herald. All rights reserved.

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