An All-Time Fan Brawl Broke Out In The Stands At The Mann Cup Finals In Canada, Including One Poor Fella Taking A Horn To The Face
It's hard to explain because there's really no American equivalent to the Mann Cup in America. It's professional senior box lacrosse, so it's far from just your average beer league. It's not quite as big as the Stanley Cup, but they go fucking wild for this thing. Each fanbase is similar in size to a minor league in America, but as passionate as any die-hard fans you'll ever come across. A few thousand people at the barn every night just dying for a chance to either A) watch their team pick up a win, B) get into a giant brawl in the stands, or C) a little bit of both.
Which is exactly what we got on Monday night out in New Westminster, BC when the New Westminster Salmonbellies were taking on the Six Nations Chiefs in game 3 of the Mann Cup Finals. The Salmonbellies were up 2-0 in the series before the Chiefs rolled into Queen's Park Arena and dogwalked them 19-9. The game was getting out of hand, things were getting a little chippy, and everyone knows that is the perfect recipe for absolute chaos to ensue in the crowd.
You'll see in the fight above that things were starting to get settled for a moment. Security looked like they were getting everybody separated and ready to move on. That's when the fella in the grey shirt ran down the stands and decided to flick someone's hat off their head. Everybody knows that move comes with a death wish in the middle of a fight. You flick someone's hat off their head, you might as well have just spit in their face. It's a ballsy move, for sure, and it came with a price.
Buddy in the grey shirt starts getting tee'd off on by a woman. She's feeding this sack of shit his lunch, and it's just hook after hook after hook. And because this is professional box lacrosse, there are going to be a few folks in the crowd carrying around some instruments. You might think someone brings a horn to a lacrosse game to add a little musical flare to the cheering section. But in reality, it's because you never know when a melee is going to break out and you can smash that horn directly over someone's dome. He catches a horn to the face, gets beat with a drum stick a few times, and ends up getting pummeled by at least 4 or 5 different people. Which is the exact type of ass kicking you should assume to receive after flicking someone's hat off their head.
There are still at least 2, with potentially 3 games left to be played in this series. Something tells me we haven't seen the last brawl of the 2025 Mann Cup. Whether it's on the floor or in the stands, we'll just have to wait and see.
Sidenote: I've blogged a couple Elijah Gash fights before. He's quickly becoming one of the most menacing right fists in all of lacrosse. Which would make sense considering he's the son of former New England Patriot fullback Sam Gash.