All Sport Report

It was less than a minute into the action, Todd “fridge” Fedoruk jumped on the ice to square off with Colton Orr in a battle of enforcers. Both teams wanted to assert themselves early after their last meeting.

The last time the Rangers and Flyers met was a down and dirty, heavy hitting game that left both Brendan Shanahan and Mike Knuble sidelined after a wicked accidental collision. Mike’s been back on the ice for just four games, this game marked Shanahan’s return to the ice.

The Flyers lost this game 5-0, no surprises there. New York was on a high from having Shanahan return and the Flyers haven’t been the most impressive team on the ice this year, but the fight mere seconds after the game began sucked whatever wind the Flyers may have had right out of their sail.

Almost as fast as the fight began Orr landed a thunderous right hand to Fedoruk’s face, immediatley rendering him unconcious. Medical assistance was rushed onto the ice to Fedoruk’s side, putting on a neck brace and pushing him out of the rink on a stretcher.

I’ve watched a lot of hockey fights in my day, bought vhs videos filled with six hours of nothing but on ice fisticuffs. I honestly don’t remember ever seeing such a brutally convincing knockout.

Fedoruk spent the night at St. Vincents hospital for observation, but the Ranger’s neurologist has commented the Todd is doing fine and other than a few problems with short term memory loss there were no signs at all of any neurologic damage and no fractures.

Fedoruk stated that he feels a little sore, but otherwise fine, “I guess I just got my bell rung.”

Fridge already has titanium plates in his face from injuries sustained during fights earlier in the season. He spent time on the injured reserve while he was with Anaheim after incurring injuries during a game with Minnesota. Then Fedoruk suffered broken cheek and orbital bones in a fight against Eric Cairns of the Islanders that required surgery and the insertion of the plates, now he’s unsure if he’ll play again this season after this most recent incident.

I’ve watched this video, I don’t know, probably two dozen times. It doesn’t seem any less scary the more I watch it. I think Todd Fedoruk should take the rest of the season off and begin to work on his finess game. I never saw Wayne Gretzky get punched that hard. Think about it Todd, next time you might not be so lucky.

Todd Fedoruk, Colton Orr, hockey fight, hockey knockout