Yeah, so last night I went to the Canes-Rangers game. I was fairly fully expecting the ‘Canes to get pwned as they have just about every time they’ve played a game after a break, and hoping that Sean Avery would get a beatdown or three (dozen) just to break the monotony.

The fun started before the puck even dropped. No sooner had the lights come up and everyone gathered for the opening faceoff than Scott “Remo Williams” Walker and Sean Avery threw down. It wasn’t much of a fight, really. They wrestled a bit, and the linesmen immediately broke it up and sent them both to the penalty box for roughing. The real fun, however, was yet to come. Wade Brookbank and Colton Orr threw down at 3:41 of the first–Wade got his face pwned, and he and Orr made a date for later in the game.

After Remo laid a hit on Scott Gomez that had more than a little elbow action to it less than 45 seconds later, a writhing mass of players (or, to quote The Mighty Forslund, “a bevy of humanity”) congregated in the southwest corner of the rink and commenced to discussing the merits of said hit.

Birthday boy Tim Gleason waded in and wound up wrestling with Jaromir Jagr–and was summarily ejected for violating rule 47.16 (Third Man In).

Walker and Avery got into it again, and both got to have a sit-down for five minutes–well, except for Avery. He got 4610 and 2 just ahead of me for instigating (yeah I know, big shock there).

And about 9 minutes and change later, Orr and Brookbank stepped to each other for Round 2. That fight was a bit more even, for those who keep score at home. I could just hear Marv Albert and Ferdie Pacheco breaking it all down in my head, and decided that I better not go get another Diet Pepsi once I’d finished the one I was currently drinking.

Things settled down after that–some cheatin’ wife-stealin’ no-good dirtbag who whined his way out of Hartford and deserves to have the air let out of his tires Ranger scored, people were falling down all over the place, and Bret of the Gimpy Hip not only played defence but he also made me laugh by first clotheslining Petr Prucha at the Hurricanes’ blueline and then giving him the Flying Buttcheek. If he’d thrown in a Stinkface for good measure, it would have brought the house down. Either that, or it would have made me fall out my chair laughing. One of the two.

The crowd was admittedly a bit on the light side (except in Section 328, which is always well-staffed and ready to overwhelm the audio pickups on Press Row), but they were really into it. The last minute of the game was pretty tense, as the Rangers pulled Lundqvist to get a 6-on-3 and even knocked Cam’s stick out of his hand for good measure–but the good guys prevailed in the end.

Thursday night should be interesting, as it always is when Chairman Mo comes back for a visit. Let’s just hope Sportsnet East doesn’t pre-empt the game for like NASCAR or something.