ORLANDO, Fla. – With all of the playoff seedings decided, Saturday night in the Southern Professional Hockey League was supposed to be all about the scoring championship. Instead, it turned into possibly the biggest black eye and headache the league has ever seen. The anticipated head-to-head showdown between Knoxville’s Kevin Swider and Fayetteville’s Rob Sich was overshadowed by a bench clearing brawl, 22 players and one coach being ejected and seeing the contest declared a forfeit when Fayetteville was left with two available skaters midway through the third period. Half an hour after the game was stopped, the league office sent out a statement promising a “complete and thorough review” of the game and informing the media that no further statements would be released until after the review is completed. Given the fact that Knoxville and Fayetteville are supposed to meet in a first round playoff series later in the week, it is expected that the review will be quick. The 4,217 mostly Ice Bears fans filing into the Knoxville Civic Coliseum had no idea what was in store for them. Fayetteville had locked up the third seed and home ice Friday night with a 7-2 win over Columbus, relegating Knoxville to fourth place. Still, they were excited following Swider’s record-setting performance from 24 hours before. In a 9-3 win over Huntsville, Swider collected seven assists to set records for both most assists and most points in a single game. It was also his 30th consecutive game with at least one point, breaking his own record of 29. More importantly, it had pulled him dead even with Sich at 97 points, setting up the one game showdown. The first period was nothing out of the normal. Sich fired the first shot of the battle, being credited with an assist on Lawne Snyder’s power play goal at 6:04. Swider answered back with a helper of his own, posting the lone assist on Tim Vitek’s tally during a five-on-three man advantage. At the end of the period, the scoreboard read Fayetteville 2 and Knoxville 2 but the scoring fight was still tied with both Sich and Swider sitting at 98 points. Swider took the lead by one just past the four minute mark of the second when he and Vitek assisted on a Mark Van Vliet score. Six minutes later, Sich scored a short-handed goal to tie the score and the race. Or so we thought. It turned out that between periods, Sich’s assist had been reviewed and taken away, meaning that the goal only pulled him to within 99-98. Swider then got his 100th point (he’s still the only SPHL player to hit the mark) at 13:27 on B.J. Pelkey’s tally. Van Vliet scored his second of the game to make it 5-3 in favor of the Ice Bears. Then the fun began. As the buzzer sounded to end the period, Sich reportedly riled up some of the Knoxville players on a pass by the bench. Whatever he did, it drew the attention of every player on the ice, sparking a line brawl. From there, a video posted at http:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHZQpBGAjeo that was shot from the upper seating area of the Coliseum tells a few stories. The line brawl winds its way to center ice. A four-man scrum breaks away and gets close to the Knoxville bench. When the four split into two one-on-one battles, the video appears to show a white-sleeved arm reaching out to grab a black-shirted Fayetteville player and drag him to the boards. Just feet away, another arm (or two) grabs another FireAntz player and reels him in. This time, the player ends up going over the boards and disappears into the sea of white on the bench. As soon as their teammate went missing, the entire Fayetteville bench spills out onto the ice and quickly races to the opposition bench. The on-ice fights intensified and the action at and on the bench got wild and crazy. At one juncture, the two Fayetteville goalies had a hold of a Knoxville forward. Gloves, sticks and helmets were strewn all over the ice. Referee Travis Smith and linesmen Tony and Jonathan Paradise (this was Tony’s last game before retiring) had their hands full, running from fight to fight trying to separate the combatants. On two occasions, things seemed to be calming down when a flare-up at the bench caught everybody’s attention again. Finally, order was restored and the players were sent to the locker rooms while the officials sorted out the punishment. When the third period started, it was evident that the brawl had taken its toll. Both benches looked like ghost towns because of the number of game misconducts that Smith issued. On the Fayetteville side of the ice, Dan McNeill, Corey Hessler, Sean Cryer, Mark Versteeg-Lytwyn, Murray Free, Bobby Reed and Brett McConnachie were bounced under Rule 70.3 (Leaving the players bench during an altercation). Brett Needham drew a double game misconduct for Rule 70.3 and Rule 70.6 (First or second player off players bench). Sich and goalie Guy St. Vincent were tossed based on Rule 47.7 (Fighting off the ice). Coach Tommy Stewart was also given the rest of the night off with Rule 75.5 (Inciting an opponent). It left the FireAntz with seven skaters and one goalie. The Ice Bears lost a number of players as well. Chris Brannen, Mark Van Vliet, Travis Hanson, Frank Furdero, Mike Bulawka, B.J. Pelkey, Travis Martell, Taylor Hustead and Andrew Gallant were banished with Rule 47.6 (Fighting – secondary fight during an altercation). They had eight skaters and a goalie to start the third stanza with. The whole penalty mess left Knoxville with a two-man advantage to start the third. Swider capitalized at the :17 mark to push the lead to 6-3. The ugliness returned at the 1:05 point when a Fayetteville skater – identified as Jesse Biduke by Pointstreak – was nabbed for a five-minute slashing major on Swider and tossed from the game. At the same time, Nick Bydal of Fayetteville and Darcy Rees of Knoxville went at it, earning both of them an early shower. The slashing major continued the Ice Bears’ power play and they cashed in as Mike Kneeland, Swider and Kyle Bochek all scored to blow the game wide open. Steve Cooke later scored a power play goal for the FireAntz to complete the scoring. The game ended not too much later. Biduke (or Craig Geerlinks, whichever one was not tossed on the slashing call) took a delay of game penalty at 9:15. Then at 10:12, Chris Leveille was nailed for delaying the game, leaving just three Fayetteville players on the ice. Five seconds later, Cooke sailed the puck into the stands, drawing a third delay call and forcing Smith to call the game with only Lawne Snyder and Emery Olauson remaining to skate for the FireAntz. In the end, Swider won his sixth scoring title as his 12 points in two games pushed his total to 102. Sich had to settle for second at 98 points but holding the record for most goals in a season with 63. Now comes the review by the league. With the deadline for submitting a playoff roster being Monday late afternoon, decisions have to be made. I won’t make any guesses as to what will come down but whatever it is, the result could make the playoff series that starts Friday an exercise in head scratching because one or both teams could be missing several players. Whatever comes about, one thing is for sure: there will probably be more questions left to answer than answers provided. Someone please bring the pain killers. Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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