May we interest you in a classic Latvian hockey line brawl?
In this wacky digital media world of ours, old stuff just falls through the cracks sometimes. Then someone reposts a story or a video, and suddenly everyone’s writing about underwater hockey again.
This Latvian hockey line brawl is from 2007, so apologies ahead of time to everyone screaming “THIS IS OLD!”
(We refuse to apologize to the “SLOW NEWS DAY” people, because August 25 is why.)
But it was new to us when ‘zafer can’ popped it on YouTube today, and we searched back to find a better clip. Here is Riga 2000 and the aptly named ASK/Ogre, getting their brawl on:
The context here is really interesting: This was a line brawl from a Latvian Ice Hockey Championship series between the teams. ASK/Ogre, in black, sparked the brawl because they went down by two goals late in the third period in what would be the final game of the series. Which is, you know, extraordinarily honorable.
Obviously, the thing that sets this apart is that brutal beatdown on a Riga player who had his jersey pulled over his head. The Ogre in question is Aleksandrs Terjohins, who played in only one season with the team but played four with Riga. He’s 33 now, and a defenseman last season with Valk-494 in Estonia.
The aftermath of this thing led to seven suspensions, including Andrei Lavrenovs getting a two-year ban from the league for hitting Raymond Danilicam in the head with his stick. He missed one season before reappearing in Belarus with a pro team, but returned to Latvia with Mogo in 2011.
Old time hockey! That was some kind of chaos on the ice. Although knowing Latvian fans, we can’t even imagine how it was eclipsed in the stands.
