Players Say Fights Needed In Hockey

8 Ejected During Saturday's Lancers Game

 UPDATED 9:29 AM CST Jan 24, 2012
OMAHA, Neb. -

The players in a Saturday hockey matchup at Omaha's Civic Auditorium dropped the gloves in a fight-filled game. The players said it's all part of the sport.

"You know, one thing leads to another and then you've got a couple of guys going at it and that's really how it starts," said Omaha Lancers forward Mike Ferrantino.

The all-out fracas between the Lancers and their biggest rivals, the Lincoln Stars, didn't come without its penalties. In all, there were 192 combined penalty minutes and 10 ejections, which were later reduced to eight.

Even the goalies got into it.

"If one player feels like he was hit in the wrong way or had a cheap shot, then typically we try to back them up and unfortunately we saw that Saturday night," said Lancers associate head coach Michael Zucker.

The players were asked if fights are a good thing for hockey.

"Absolutely, I think it's a good thing," said Ferrantino. "You've got guys willing to fight, willing to protect their teammates, otherwise you have guys taking cheap hits and stuff like that. I think fighting keeps people honest and keeps people fair."

"It's part of the game and it's getting to be a pretty big part of our game in this league," said Lancers forward Tanner Lane. "Our team hasn't fought all that much this year, but when something happens on the ice, you have to stick up for your teammates and you have to fight if you have to fight."

"Whenever you have someone cheap shotting guys, you are going to have someone answer the call and they will have to fight," said Zucker. "I don't condone it, but that's the reality of the sport."

Raw Video Of Fight

The next step for most of the Lancers is to play in college, where players can't fight. Some UNO Mavericks players think that allowing fighting would actually clean up the sport.

"I think there are some illegal hits and some illegal plays that go on in college that are unwarranted," said Terry Broadhurst, a forward for the Mavericks. "There's no one out there to police it, to make sure it doesn't happen, but if there was fighting, I think it would be a little cleaner game."

The Lancers won Saturday night's game, beating the Stars 3-2, but who won the fight?

"We won the game, so we won the fight, at that's all that really matters," said Ferrantino. "In the end, we got the three points, so it was a big win for us on Saturday.

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