DEVILS ROCKED IN FIERY CLASH

The Chieftains V Cardiff ENL Devils clash always has that edge and Saturdays' game was no different. The Chieftains had put themselves in an unassailable 7-2 lead with a brace from Tom Long and Aaron Connolly each with Danny Hammond, Kyle Jones and Darren Brown, but the game will be remembered not only for the skill on show but with what happened in the final few minutes. With just over 4 minutes to go an incident between BT Williams and Bryn Griffiths ended with Griffiths jumping on BT Williams and throwing punches at the Chieftains tough guy. Once Williams had his gloves off, it was only going to go one way and Williams ended the fight by taking the Welshman down much to the delight of the home crowd.

20 seconds after the first fight ended all hell broke loose when Devils netminder Mike Brabon went to the ice to make a save and clashed with Blaho Novak and this invoked the ire of the Devils players and Brabon who triple teamed the Chieftains youngster. The rest of the players on the ice came over to help out the 17yr old and it ended up being uneven numbers as the Devils had already sent some players out for a normal line change. Williams, in the penalty box, was desperate to get out to help Novak and eventually managed to, once Griffiths had jumped out and gone after star Chieftains forward Danny Hammond. This signalled the remaining players to leave the benches and come on to the ice and a mass brawl broke out with all players on the ice pairing off, or in some cases teaming up with teammates to double-team others. The huge crowd of over 700 were all on their feet cheering and watching something that is quite rare in ice hockey, but in many respects is a special moment to witness.

Once things had calmed down and the penalties awarded, the referee Jurijs Solavjovs, had awarded match penalties to both Griffiths and Williams for leaving the penalty box, as well as match penalties to Tom Long and Steve Fisher. Each side also had 3 players put in the penalty box on roughing penalties. The game itself played out without much further incident and as is tradition all players shook hands after the game, other than Novak and Brabon who visibly didn't shake hands with tension clearly between the two still rife