Austrian Hockey League Finds A Way To Make Intermission Reports More Exciting By Adding Off-Ice Fights
At their very best, intermission reports in hockey are incredibly mundane. You just get the same cookie cutter responses to every question. Guys talking about getting pucks deep behind their defensemen. Winning the battles along the boards. Trying to play their brand of hockey. Need to put together a full 60 minute effort. Pucks on net. Most important goal is the next goal. Yada yada yada. Every intermission report is just a player trying to string together as many hockey cliches as possible before the interviewer has enough and sends you into commercial break. But at least one league in Austria is trying to change that by introducing intermission fights to the mix.
Here we have Chris DeSousa. 27-year old from Mississauga. Played a few years in the OHL. Cracked the Rockford IceHogs roster for a couple of seasons and now he’s playing in his first year over in Europe. Then we have Tom Zanoski. He’s a Croatian-Canadian. In just one season alone, he once played for 5 different AHL teams. 2009-10 he played 8 games for the Binghamton Senators, 2 games for the Albany River Rats, 9 games for the Lake Erie Monsters, 2 games for the Toronto Marlies and then 2 games for the Syracuse Crunch. He’s been touring all over Europe the past few years making stops in Germany, Croatia, the KHL, Slovenia, and now Austria. Soooooo yeah, he’s pretty much the perfect candidate to be a guy chuckin’ knucks off the ice between periods. Honestly, I’m just impressed that this is the first time we’ve seen something like this from him. 20 teams in 5 years will take a toll on a guy.
P.S. – This is still my favorite off-ice fight despite the fact that no punches were actually thrown. Nobody is a bigger shit stirrer than Torts. Nobody.
h/t Aivis Kalnins – a great follow for KHL news/other European league highlights