On Sunday afternoon, some of New York’s bravest and New York’s finest got together at Nassau Coliseum for the 41st annual FDNY-NYPD charity hockey match. According to the website, the event is “all about coming together to enjoy sportsmanship and helping others.” This year, however, the game was at least partially about police officers and firefighters beating the crap out of each other as their families and admirers — and now, thanks to the internet, the rest of the world — looked on.
It’s not clear what sparked the huge fight that broke out between the two teams, but it certainly was crazy: The ice became littered with dropped hockey sticks and gloves as pretty much all of the players rushed to punch and wrestle one another to the ground. At one point, the crowd began shouting opposing chants of “FD sucks” and “PD sucks” (and, of course, “Dunkin’ Donuts”). At least one cop had to be put in a choke-hold by a referee:
All in all, it took more than a minute of all-out brawling before the participants finally began to calm down. For the record, the NYPD won the hockey game 8-5, though the real victors are obviously anyone who doesn’t have to rely on these guys to keep calm under pressure.
