Comedian Rodney Dangerfield once said, I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.” KHL fans were treated to a similar experience on Tuesday night in the game between Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod and Ak Bars Kazan. Except fans got the hockey match and then the fight. After all, in an unusual turn of events, the fight broke out after all the hockey action had concluded.

As the players lined up on the ice for post-game handshakes, tensions suddenly flared. The goaltenders Ivan Kulbakov and Amir Miftakhov got into a heated argument, that was headed to a singular conclusion. Yup, you guessed it: fisticuffs. What began as a routine handshake quickly devolved into an impassioned exchange of words, with a lot of gesturing from Kulbakov’s side. And once Kulbakov grabbed Miftakhov by the collar, it didn’t take much for the punches to start flying. So the fight escalated pretty quickly.

It wasn’t long before players from both sides rushed in. Fortunately, they were able to stop things from truly going out of control. But it did make for a chaotic time, as over a dozen players thronged together, some trying to fight, while others tried to break it up. It was an unusual sight, seeing so many players involved in the brawl; after all, your average hockey fight will only have the players who are already on the ice involved.

It was Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod who won in dramatic fashion, crushing Ak Bars Kazan 5-1. Therefore, it’s no wonder that Miftakhov instigated the incident, considering that it can’t be easy to lose by that margin. Although the scrum of players on the ice didn’t devolve into a bigger fight, NHL fans had mixed reactions to the whole incident.

Fans just want more action

Some fans bemoaned the lack of KHL coverage in Canada. For the most ardent hockey enthusiasts, it would give them more high-level hockey to watch in the daytime while saving the NHL for the evening. One fan wrote, “Absolute shame we can’t watch KHL on tv during the day over in Canada.”

Another fan, however, made a comparison between the NHL and KHL. They felt that players in the NHL were a bit too buddy-buddy. What they wanted to see was some genuine drama and action. “@nhl needs more intense dislike in its players,” said one X user. And the commenter does have a point, for those who are in it for the drama. After all, the last goalie fight in the NHL took place all the way back in 2020 between the Edmonton Oilers’ Mike Smith and the Calgary Flames’ Cam Talbot. Since then, there was only the referee-thwarted attempt at a fight in 2023 between Jordan Binnington and Marc-Andre Fleury.

However, some fans took to analyzing the fight itself. They felt that it was too short-lived to even warrant calling it anything but a minor fight. “Brawl? That was barely a scuffle.” Clearly the standards for an actual brawl are pretty high among some fans.

But then you had hockey fight enthusiasts also weighing in. For some, there is no hockey without the fights. One netizen wrote, “My favorite part of a hockey game…” Whatever your opinion may be on hockey fights, you can’t deny that it gives the sport an edge and can inject some serious drama and flavor into a game. Although there have been calls to ban fighting in hockey, it can’t be denied that at this point, it’s basically integral to the game. Do you agree? Let us know in the comments below.