Hockey is BACK.
The NHL officially kicked off the 2021-2022 season this week and damn it’s good to have hockey back. The sounds of the stick slapping the ice and the puck hitting the glass, the insane saves from the goalies, the fights…and not just the ones on the ice.
Obviously we’ve seen an insane number of brawls in the crowds at sporting events this year for some reason. You’d think people would just be thankful to be back in the stands after a shitshow of a sports year in 2020. Sit down, grab a beer, just be happy that you’re watching live sports again, right?
Nope.
We’ve had dads trying to fight entire student sections at college football games, all-out brawls in the NFL stands, and who can forget “Suns in 4” guy. Yeah, it seems like everybody’s lost their ever-loving minds and is more ready than ever to throw hands.
And hockey fans weren’t about to let football fans have all the fun.
Last night was opening night for the Nashville Predators, who hosted the Seattle Kraken in their first-ever NHL game.
What happened on the ice isn’t really important (mainly because I’m a Preds fan and we lost), because it’s what happened in the stands that’s making its way around social media.
We don’t really have much context here from this first video. All we see is a Preds fan wailing on some Kraken fan while everybody around him tries to break it up.
It looks pretty one-sided, until we go to the video from an alternate angle.
Looks like the Kraken fan (How does one become a Kraken fan in Nashville anyway? Did he fly from Seattle for opening night? It’s not like he’s been a fan his whole life) gets the Preds fan in a headlock and starts landing blows, before the Preds fan eventually breaks free.
Some guy in a Corona shirt jumps in to try to help out the Kraken guy, and then a dude in a shirt that says “Assholes Live Forever” walks in to make a weak ass attempt at breaking it up.
And the whole time, the older fans in the stands just sit there in their seats, probably cursing the entire younger generation for pulling this shit while they’re just trying to watch some hockey.
There’s also a third video that seems to show what led up to the brawl, with the two fans standing up and jawing at each other before the Preds fan holds up a rally towel and the Kraken fan rips it out of his hands. The Preds fan then pushes the Kraken fan, and from there it’s on.
Security eventually did respond to the brawl, but neither party wanted to press charges and no arrests were made.
I know people like to see fights at hockey games, but I’d rather stick to the action on the ice than have to deal with some assholes like this throwing punches beside me in the stands.
Just picking up where football season left off, I guess.
