It only took five seconds into the final game of the season between the Rochester Americans and Syracuse Crunch for a fight to occur on the ice. The Amerks and Crunch are each others biggest rival, which is only natural considering it’s a short drive down the thruway and they also play each other 12 times a year.
Drew Larman and Alexandre Picard had been wanting to fight for the previous few games but did not have the chance until Saturday night. Picard was on the starting lineup for the Crunch, Larman was not for the Amerks. All it took was Picard explaining to McArdle who was on the ice. McArdle agreed, after the puck dropped he jumped off the ice and Larman hopped on.
By definition this was one of those “staged fights” that both the AHL and NHL seem to be on a mission to put an end to. I asked Larman about this being a staged fight and he hadn’t heard anything about things like this considered a bad thing. Larman said, “He’s a good player. To get him off the ice for five minutes is an advantage.”
Drew Larman isn’t a fighter, but he certainly did much better than last year when he got into a fight with Aaron Rome (video).
