Carcillo And Gaborik Drop The Gloves; Flyers Fans See Facts, Rangers Fans See Delusions

Oh man, I love hockey. The Flyers played a picture perfect game which included Ray Emery getting a much needed shutout a shaky performance against Washington and only showing slight improvement against Columbus. But the part of the game that was most talked about had nothing to do with goals, but rather it was a fight between Carbomb Dan Carcillo and Marian Gaborik.

While the result of the fight was as one would figure, the start of the fight has already created quite a bit of controversy between Flyers fans and Rangers fans.

Normally I would run the video first, but at the risk of corrupting your minds of delusions as the only video of the fight online is that of the Rangers MSG broadcast, I will give you the facts of what happened first, let you spot those facts for yourself as you watch, and you can laugh at the delusions.

Here is what happened:

Ray Emery made a save with players in front of the net. Tollefson of the Flyers and Dubinsky of the Rangers pushed and shoved in front of the net.

Carcillo, gloves on, engaged Gaborik to the glass. Carcillo settles down as if to end it, knowing that it is not his purpose in the game to start a fight with a team's star player. Yes, he has a reputation, but Laviolette has coached him well and his discipline has grown enormously in the past few months. Well for Carbomb's standards at least, but I digress....Gaborik then starts pushing back and manages to get Carcillo up against the class. It is at this point, unprompted, Marion Gaborik starts dropping his gloves and lands a brief punch in while Carcillo responds to Gaborik's green light of his gloves dropping by dropping his own gloves.

So do you understand? Gaborik dropping gloves = green light for Carcillo to destroy shit.

And now, here is the video of the fight, complete with whiny Rangers announcers painting Dan Carcillo as evil incarnate. Watch with pleasure, listen at your own risk.



From the official Rangers Twitter right after the fight: "Carcillo jumps Gaborik, lands flurry of punches; Torts screaming at Laviolette; #Rangers furious; #NYR still down 1-0"

Did anyone see a jumping there?

John Tortorella kept exclaiming after the game how there was "no honor" in that, according to TSN's James Duthie on Twitter (EDIT: exact quotes from Tortorella: "I was frustrated because there’s simply no honor, I sit behind the bench with a suit and tie on. I’m not trying to run anybody down, I just think there’s a lack of honor." and "Well, there’s no honor in that, I don’t play the game, I don’t wear the uniform. I don’t want to say too much about it, but there’s simply no honor in that."). How was that not honorable? It's part of the game. Gaborik dropped his gloves first while tangled up with Carbomb. Fighting is part of the game of hockey like it or not, and when that happens and you do it against the other team's biggest fighter, guess what, Marion is going to get the crap beat out of him.

Now Rangers fans will try to tell you that Dan Carcillo was licking his chops all game to get at Marian Gaborik based off of a quote that Carcillo made. Well, they would be taking things out of context, here is the quote, full context, and while you will see how the Rangers will take the quote out of context to fit their delusional narrative of events, that is not what was said.

Here's the full quote: "“I wasn’t expecting him to drop his gloves and when he did, I was pretty much licking my chops."

And why would not Carcillo be licking his chops? Gaborik is a big time scorer on a hot streak. If you can get him out of the game for 5 minutes, by all means, take advantage of that opportunity. While Tortorella is on his delusion of dishonor, it really is a smart play by Carcillo that just so happens to allow him to do what he is best at: fighting.

Now there are some Rangers fans that are claiming that Gaborik was just defending himself when he dropped the gloves, which makes no sense on so many levels because Gaborik was on the aggressive side of the pushing at the time, not Carbomb, and secondly, why on earth would Gaborik defend himself by stripping himself of armor? If he was just trying to protect himself, wouldn't he want gloves? And

The good news though is that not all Ranger fans are like this. Consider this report on the game from, of all things, the Rangers correspondent at The Bleacher Report

At 5:43 into the second period, Daniel Carcillo pounded on Marion Gaborik. I know all about this and what Carcillo did was not wrong. If you watch the reviews , it was quite obvious that it was Gaborik trying to discard his gloves well before Carcillo did. Basically Gaborik had no idea what he was doing because that was just a stupid move on his part. Of Course Carcillo is going to drop the gloves and start swinging if he sees that a player is looking to do the same to him, and that is exactly what happen. Hey this is hockey, it is a tough sport and a fighting sport regardless who you are. Gaborik didn’t stand a chance but at the same time , his teammates should have jumped in before that beating could have ever taken place. No i didn't like the idea of Gabby getting a beating, He is not a fighter. but it was Gabby who really did drop the gloves first.

Logic! From a Rangers fan! At last!

Now I know what you are thinking, The Bleacher Report is normally a bunch of bullshit, so therefore, maybe those delusional Rangers are not so delusional after all.

Well, I will end with this one last screenshot of the video above.

As you can clearly see, there is only one glove on the ground. And if you look at the players, you can make out a bare fist. Trace the fist and see the jersey that the fist is coming from and whose fist does it end up being? The fist of the man who started the fight: Marian Gaborik.

Game 49, preview and game thread: New York Rangers at Philadelphia Flyers (Broad Street Hockey)

Flyers win 2-0, Rangers delusional in defeat (Broad Street Hockey)