“My Eye Bled and I Couldn’t See”: Crazy Scenes Emerged Following a Deadly NHL Brawl That Had Six Guys Pounding a Player in 1973

Ice hockey is home to some of the nastiest sports fights in history. While some sports refrain from this, the game of ice hockey adores it. The sport saw one of its most brutal and bloody brawls in an NHL game between the California Golden Seals and Philadelphia Flyers on December 2, 1973. One player received a pounding from six players!

California Golden Seals defenseman, Barry Cummins, raised his stick toward Philadelphia Flyers center Bobby Clarke. After that, all hell broke loose. In Brad Kurtzberg’s 2006 book, Shorthanded: The Untold Story of the Seals: Hockey’s Most Colorful Team, Cummins described the incident.

NHL witnessed a spine-chilling fight:

The former player recalled, “I got a stick in the eye (from Clarke). My eye bled and I couldn’t see. I reacted. I picked up my stick and did the same thing.” Soon after, the ‘Broad Street Bullies‘ came up and made it a point to show their presence. Winger Joey Johnston of California spoke to Hockey Digest about the details of the fight.

He said, “Bob Kelly went out with his stick and Dave Schultz and then the rest. Ed Van Impe was going around jabbing Cummins with his stick—spearing him. There’s gotta be six guys pounding him while this was going on.”

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Fighting in ice hockey is a familiar instance. Enforcers or goons may start the fight as a system of unwritten rules, known as ‘The Code’, governs it.

Despite six players pounding one player, the Flyers player Kelly explained how “Cummins got what he deserved,” as Bill Flett added, “It’s easy to kill somebody. I don’t know who that goon was, but you can bet if he stays around, there will be a lot of people taking runs at him.”

Players received bans and fines!

While Bobby Clarke received 12 stitches due to the fight, Cummins had three stitches, a $300 fine, and a three-game suspension. Even though the Flyers won the game, this ugly fight marred the 5-1 victory. 

Barry Cummins played 36 games in the NHL, while his counterpart was an icon of the Flyers. Bobby Clarke claimed two Stanley Cups in a 15-year tenure with the team and was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players.

To sum up, he had an illustrious career. But the fight in 1973 became a brutal advertisement for the whole complexion of the league.

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