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You can definitely feel something different in the air now that we're into the second half of the college hockey season. Conference points become a little more critical, and emotions run a little higher. Last week, those emotions boiled over in Mankato, where Minnesota State and Ferris State got into a third period fight last Saturday.
This week, it was Union and Rensselaer getting into an altercation after RPI's 2-1 win over tonight in the Mayor's Cup game in Albany, New York. that even got the coaches from each team involved.
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Via ChrisChenes, we have video of the altercation:
Here is the box score for the full rundown of penalties. So far, Union's Mat Bodie and Eli Lichtenwald and RPI's Mike Zalewski and Luke Curadi received game disqualifications, which means they will each miss their team's next game. There's always the possibility for more suspensions to be handed at as well after tape is reviewed, and that may be the case here.
The whole thing seems to settle down a bit about 20 seconds into the video until a coach(Update: That's actually Union head coach Rick Bennett) comes off one bench and shoves an opposing coach which escalates things again. TWC News out of Albany tweeted out this picture of the coaches battling.
It was certainly one of the craziest endings to a college game that you will see. We will update throughout the week on any further suspensions from the incident.
UPDATE: A second YouTube video from user Justin Andrews has surfaced, showing the start of the fight, as well as giving a better view of Union head coach Rick Bennett coming off the bench and escalating the fight by going after an RPI coach:
For more on the game, and the circumstances surrounding the fight, as well as post-game reaction, check out the game story and post-game blog from Ken Schott of the Daily Gazette.
