The Swift Current Broncos have plenty of new faces this season, but they displayed an early measure of team unity through a rare full-scale line brawl during a 5-2 win in their season opener against the Prince Albert Raiders on Saturday.
Sawyer Dingman, Jacob Beaulieu, Carter Moen, Kayd Ruedig, and Hyde Davidson all dropped the gloves during the second-period fracas that had the 2,363 fans at the InnovationPlex in a frenzy. The event also garnered significant attention on social media in the hockey world over the next few days.
The Western Hockey League responded on Tuesday with $1,500 fines for both teams for the ‘multiple fight situation.’
“The rational was that there hadn’t been a line brawl in the league for 14 years, I guess the first one in 14 years, so they wanted to try and make the penalty harsh enough so that it doesn’t happen again,” explained first-year Head Coach and General Manager Travis Crickard. “Understandable that that’s the approach taken, but I guess difficult to swallow from a financial standpoint. You don’t want to be put in a place where you’re having to pay fines.”
Crickard was hoping that the team could take some positives out of the event.
“But on the other side of it I felt like it definitely brought our team closer together. The guys were pretty jacked and a lot of positive vibes after the game as a result of it. That’s one of our team values is ride for each other and part of that is having each other’s back and that’s very much what the guys did.”
Crickard said the team was consulted before the final penalty was levied.
“Yeah there was conversation about it first just to I guess get an understanding of our side of the events, Prince Albert’s side of the events, and then the officials’ side of the events to determine what the best ruling, so to speak, would be. Basically they said that they needed a little bit of time make a final decision to make a final determination and then got an email about 24 hours later with the fine.”
Broncos’ 6’4’’ forward Sawyer Dingman was assessed a charging penalty and an instigating penalty, which surprised many of the fans in the building and Broncos players and coaches alike.
“The thing about it was that after discussion it was determined that the instigator penalty that Sawyer Dingman got on the play should not have been an instigator penalty, so that was good, it doesn’t go against his record and I’m glad that we had the opportunity to discuss it so that that got wiped off his record,” said Crickard.
The Broncos are back at home on Friday to host the Moose Jaw Warriors.
