Who says a fight cannot rejuvenate a down but not quite out hockey club? Only in the great sport of hockey can two men drop the gloves, square off,  duke it out and lift the crowd and the benches to surge on to a result? Only in hockey does the result of the fight not always matter either. Last night in the first second of the game Sean McMorrow of the Giants dropped the mitts with Brad Cruikshank of the Sheffield Steelers. McMorrow had invited Cruikshank to fight him in the press before the game and Cruikshank thinking that it might just give his directionless team the kick in the ass they need, duly obliged. McMorrow won the fight, easily, but the Sheffield players must have been sparked by their players courage and took the game to the Giants for the next 59 minutes and 59 seconds for the won the game 5-3 and may use this result as a turning point for their season.

Losing the fight reminded me of the Stanley Cup playoffs last year when Philadelphia’s Dan Carcillo beat up on Pittsburgh’s Max Talbot, but the Pitttsburgh players were inspired by their gritty third liners big effort and went on to win the game after trailing and eventually win the series and later the Stanley Cup. Travel the world of hockey and talk to players at all standards and they will all tell you the surge of energy that goes through the bench when one of their players gets into a fight. If your team are having it hard, watching one of your leaders go out and send a message is inspiring to say the least.

If you don’t believe me, then hear what Randy Dagenais, a player on the Steelers bench had to say:

“What we saw tonight from Brad was amazing, for him to fight McMorrow should us what a great team leader he is, you saw our bench everyone was standing and cheering him on

“McMorrow is a top heavyweight and Brad did a great job, his efforts at the start of the night got us all going, then he scores a big goal as well, he was certainly our leader and our man of the match

— Randy Dagenais, 31 Oct ’09

In the grand scheme of things the game didn’t matter drastically to the Giants as it was a Challenge Cup group game of which they are already through to the knockout stages but nobody ever likes to lose, especially when you have been on a winning run of late and with some big games coming up.

The last word will go to McMorrow as many people might wonder why he would give Cruikshank the fight to even allow him the opportunity to give his team some momentum, but the fact is, McMorrow is a fighter, and he knows the code, he knows that sometime he might be looking to give his team a spark and will hope another player will give him the fight. Granted by winning the fight and winning it well McMorrow could not have expected the Steelers bench to get such a jump, but his Giants team mates never responded in the way they have on many occasions this season when he has dropped an opponent and then sat in the box for five minutes.

On the subject: Brad Cruikshank, Randy Dagenais, Sean McMorrow, Sheffield Steelers | ALL SUBJECTS |

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