By ANTHONY PUCIK
The NYPD and FDNY fought another battle Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, this one was not on the streets of New York City or in a burning building. It was in the Nassau Coliseum. It was against each other. In a 3-3 tie in the second period of a hockey game between the two sides, a bench-clearing brawl ensued between the two sides. Witnesses have posted hundreds of videos of referees trying to break up the fights between New York’s Finest and New York’s Bravest while every player took the ice, throwing blows at one another. Sticks and gloves littered the ice as grown men flopped around, attempting to beat each other senseless.
The NYPD eventually won the game 8-5, but quite frankly I don’t care. In fact, I don’t even care who started the fight. Both the NYPD and FDNY should be ashamed for letting this happen. It is clear that there is always bad blood between the FDNY and NYPD when they participate in sporting events against each other, whether it be rugby or hockey, but the fact that it led to a benches clearing brawl is utterly ridiculous. Regardless of their problems with one another, these men should realize that resorting to a brawl is not the way to settle their score with one another.
What made this even worse? It was a charity game. The NYPD and FDNY turned a good cause into a senseless beating of one another because they simply don’t like each other. There were hundreds of kids there, probably some of them the children of the players in the ice, who had to witness men that they look up to as heroes fighting.
The crowd was not much better. Chants of “PD sucks” could be heard near the end of the brawl. Is that really what the point of this game was? The fact that fans deemed it necessary to chant that the New York City Police Department “sucks” should show that this devolved from a charity game into a street hockey fight between idiotic individuals whose tempers got the best of them. It’s hard to think of the NYPD and FDNY as groups of idiotic individuals, but that is how they made themselves seem Sunday afternoon.
The NYPD and FDNY refused to comment on the brawl, and who could blame them? What could they say? There is no justifiable reason for that to occur between two sides who work together to keep the people in New York City safe every single day. Regardless of whether the bravest are better than the strongest or vice versa shouldn’t matter. The common goal that binds these two organizations together should be able to trump the inherent pride that comes with serving this city.
I think the only bright spot in the entire brawl was when the two goalies came together at center ice. At first, I thought they would start fighting in the same way their fellow firefighters and policemen did, but they didn’t. They simply shrugged their shoulders and watched the brawl take place. I think the levelheadedness of these two men is something that the rest of the players on both teams can look to and admire, because yesterday nobody looked very fine or brave at all.
