GOTTA SEE IT: Barracuda, Roadrunners Line Brawl Before Game

It was Hoptober Fest at Tech CU Arena tonight, but the San Jose Barracuda and Tucson Roadrunners quickly turned it into Boptober.

To start the game, head coaches John McCarthy and Steve Potvin elected to match up fourth lines. Even before the drop of the puck, San Jose Sharks prospect Jasper Weatherby and Roadrunner Travis Barron were pushing and shoving.

Then everybody grabbed a partner!

Fireworks to start off tonight’s @RoadrunnersAHL vs @sjbarracuda. pic.twitter.com/aF8NqH7jlX

— Deana Weinheimer (@FPHAHL) October 29, 2022

Line Brawl!!! pic.twitter.com/x5VwkS6Yen

— San Jose Barracuda (@sjbarracuda) October 29, 2022

That’s how to start a game pic.twitter.com/FhvzKBEHFd

— JD Young (Content Boi) (@MyFryHole) October 29, 2022

These days, a line brawl is a rarity in high-level pro hockey

Weatherby, Patrick McGrath, Adam Raska, and Patrick Sieloff, fighting for the San Jose Sharks organization, were tossed. Meanwhile, Barron, Hudson Elynuik, Tyson Empey, and Vladislav Kolyachonok defended the Arizona Coyotes organization’s honor and were ejected for their troubles.

Only Derrick Pouliot and Ronald Knot, along with goalies Eetu Makiniemi and Jon Gillies, avoided fisticuffs.

There’s no clear sense of what touched off the line brawl.

A scout who was there for the Cuda’s 5-1 loss to the Roadrunners last night didn’t see anything then to explain this brouhaha.

And the Barracuda, if there was anything more to it, weren’t telling after the game.

“I guess I missed the memo that we were all going to fight there,” Pouliot joked. “That’s a big statement thing after last night especially, to step up and set the tone like that.”

“It was kind of a spur of the moment thing,” McCarthy offered. “I felt like in the previous game, we kind of backed down a little bit too much. So we talked about standing up for ourselves and standing up for one another.”

The San Jose Sharks AHL affiliate bench boss, however, didn’t offer any specifics about how the Barracuda backed down yesterday. He was, however, happy with the response today.

“Just kind of making it known that we’re not going to really stand for being pushed around like the way we were in the first game.”