Skipped

Forgot to mention yesterday that last season’s fighting total has been eclipsed.

The increase isn’t monumental, but with the schedule the way it is, and player movement lessening compared to the post-lockout shuffle, an increase of any kind was expected.

Last night George Parros fought David Koci, a rematch from two weeks ago.  One rabid fan base vs another.  The Stache Squad vs The Cult of Koci.  It was a decent scrap.  Koci fared better this time around.

Last night’s fights:

Mike Commodore vs Ben Eager Mar 28, 2007
Brad May vs Danny Richmond Mar 28, 2007
George Parros vs David Koci Mar 28, 2007

Stuff to help you procrastinate instead of doing whatever it is you should really be doing:

The Daily Tribune noticed the fight totals from this year and last:

The fight between Andrea Lilja and Anaheim’s Travis Moen on Monday was just the ninth fighting major of the season for the Red Wings. It was, however, a notable fight league-wide. That was the 357th game of the NHL campaign with a fight, according to hockeyfights.com, tying the league with last year’s total. When there were four games with fights the next night, the NHL passed its total (357) of a year ago.

Lilja’s fight and Mikael Samuelsson’s scuffle with Scott Niedermayer drew praise from Babcock.

“I was really impressed with Lils and I was really impressed with Sammy,” said Babcock. “Sometimes you think when you’re not from North America, that if someone rushes your face then you’re supposed to say thanks. Well they didn’t say thanks. They just responded. They’re big men. They can look after themselves.”

Babcock also joked about the fight: “I thought it was outstanding. That was the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been the Red Wings’ coach.”

My buddy Eric McErlain spoke with Donald Brashear to get his thoughts on fighting, and a possible ban.

Eric also asked fans at the Caps-Pens game and got some fan opinions on the subject.

Great job Eric.  You can read more from Eric at Off Wing Opinion and NBC Sports.

Also over at NBC is Scott Bowman, who wrote about the physical side of hockey.

If you haven’t seen it yet, City Pages has a great feature on Derek Boogaard: The Boogeyman Drops the Gloves

Hey, even I was quoted.  Let me translate one snippet for you.

“Anytime where over the next month they’re gonna say, ‘He broke someone’s face,’ that’s gonna get you somewhere,” says Hockeyfights.com’s Singer.

That doesn’t read well, so here’s the background: We were talking about Boogey’s rep and how and when that gets established.  While his KO of Trevor Gillies was big last season, the Fedoruk fight at the beginning of this season got the chatter going louder then ever: Derek Boogaard is the next big thing.  If you watched any Wild game, or even any Flyers game post-trade, that fight seemed to be mentioned.  Whenever a big fight happened in any game, that fight seemed to be mentioned.

Somehow those thoughts produced the quote above (which was in the middle of some thoughts that did make sense).  I feel like it went through an online Japanese translator, and was then translated back into English.

The City Pages feature has some great additions to the features to check out as well.

A couple of more reads:
Blue Jackets: Fighting belongs in hockey, players say
Boyle still playing for respect in the NHL