Understand heading into this post that I'm not passing judgment. I'm not calling either of these two rather nasty displays passable, acceptable and anything less that disturbing. I just feel it necessary to share something that surprised the hell out of me upon discovering it the other day, and I'd like to hear your thoughts.

While ambling through some alternately cogent and infuriating comments in this Sports Media Watch post from last week, I read about a brawl between the NHL's Boston Bruins and New York Rangers from years ago (1979, it turns out) that ended with the bulk of the Bruin roster taking to the Madison Square Garden stands. After an initial Google search gave me nothing, I headed over to YouTube and found this:

Yikes.

The brawl itself is pretty scary. What somehow registered more, as someone who had nothing better to do than be stuck in a room with the hundreds of hours of cable TV coverage of 2004's Pistons-Pacers brawl, was the fact that I had never seen a clip nor mention of this mess in all the hysteria that resulted following this disgusting turn of events:

The messed-up reality was that I'd never even heard about this hockey fight. Now, I understand that hockey has taken a hit over the last few years, but this was a melee in the world's most famous arena between the two most popular and historic stateside hockey clubs the NHL boasts.

And while I don't want to try and grade either this brawl or the Auburn Hills brawl on a sliding scale, doesn't it seem a bit odd that SportsCenter (at least) didn't fire up a clip of this in some sort of trashy top 10 countdown (like they do every time Bobby Knight acts like an ass)? And this can't be sloughed off as another, "ESPN hates the NHL" story, because the NHL was on ESPN and ABC in 2003-04, and was embroiled in a labor dispute in 2004-05.

So what do you think? Obviously, anything of any import or interest is bound to be trumped up beyond belief by the internets and 24-hour news cycle. The Auburn Hills melee was an example of that, but does this mean we dismiss or overlook any bit of similar history that took place prior to the Clinton administration?

Isn't it up to those who were around back then, and know that this sort of thing isn't unprecedented, to inform us about what's gone on in years past?

I have no doubt that a good portion of whoever was stuck on the respective panels of Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn had at least a passing knowledge of the Madison Square Garden melee. So why weren't we - the fans who weren't yet born when the Bruins took to the seats - told about it?

Be tactful, be sensible, and let us know what you think.