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A bench-clearing brawl is a form of fighting that occurs in sports, most notably baseball and ice hockey, where most or all players on both teams leave their dugouts, bullpens, or benches, and charge onto the playing area in order to fight one another or try to break up a fight. Penalties for leaving the bench can range from nothing to severe.
In baseball, brawls are usually the result of escalating infractions or indignities, [2] often stemming from a batter being hit by a pitch, especially if the batter then charges the mound. [3] They may also be spurred by an altercation between a baserunner and fielder, such as excessive contact during an attempted tag out. [2]
Few bench-clearing brawls result in serious injury, as in most cases, no punches are thrown, and the action is limited to pushing and shoving. Noteworthy is that players from opposing bullpens run onto the field, often side-by-side, depending on bullpen locations, to join the brawl (which is usually over by the time they arrive), rather than brawling among themselves. This highlights the purpose of coming onto the field which is to show support instead of escalating the conflict.
Unlike most other team sports, where teams usually have an equivalent number of players on the field at any given time, in baseball the hitting team is at a numerical disadvantage, with a maximum of five players (the batter, up to three runners, and an on-deck batter) and two base coaches on the field, compared to the fielding team's nine players. For this reason, leaving the dugout to join a fight is generally considered acceptable in that it results in numerical equivalence on the field, a fairer fight, and a typically neutral outcome. As in most cases, managers and/or umpires will intervene to restore order and resume the game. In at least one case, (the infamous Ten Cent Beer Night promotion) the home team (Cleveland Indians) left their dugout to defend the visiting team (Texas Rangers) from fans who had stormed the field. [5]
Depending on the severity of the unsportsmanlike conduct, an umpire may or may not eject a brawl's participants. Since a bench-clearing brawl by definition involves everyone on both teams, it is exceedingly unlikely that all participants will be ejected, but the player or players responsible for the precipitating event are often ejected. [6] Fines and suspensions generally result and are issued at a later date.
Fighting in ice hockey by enforcers is an established, if unofficial, part of the sport (especially in North America, where the penalty rules are more permissive); the general procedure in a one-on-one fight is to let it run to its completion and then send both players to the penalty box with five-minute major penalties. Escalations beyond isolated fights, such as when most or all players on the ice begin to fight, known as a line brawl, are prohibited. Players violating these rules face more serious consequences, such as players being assessed game misconduct penalties (being ejected from the game) and suspensions.
As in baseball, hockey brawls usually result from escalating infractions. In this case, dangerous hits, excessive post-whistle roughness, taking shots after the whistle, attacking the goaltender, and hatred from competition in a game with a significant amount of inter-player violence, all contribute to bench-clearing brawls.
In the National Hockey League the penalties include, in addition to in-game penalties, an automatic 10-game suspension and a fine of $10,000 [7] for the first player to leave his bench or the penalty box to participate in a brawl; for each subsequent player after the first to leave his bench or the penalty box, the penalties include, in addition to in-game penalties, an automatic five-game suspension and a fine of $5,000.
The International Ice Hockey Federation rules prescribe a double minor penalty plus a game misconduct penalty for the first player to leave the bench during an altercation and a misconduct penalty for other such players; [8] a player who leaves the penalty box during an altercation is assessed a minor penalty plus a game misconduct penalty. [9] In addition to these penalties for leaving the bench, all players engaging in a fight may be penalized. [10]
One of the more notable incidents was the Punch-up in Piestany, a game between Canada and the Soviet Union during the 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships. The game was rougher and more dangerous than is generally accepted, and with 6:07 left in the second period, a fight broke out between Pavel Kostichkin and Theoren Fleury, causing both teams to leave the benches for 20 minutes. The officials ordered that the arena lights be turned out, but to no avail, and the IIHF eventually declared the game void. Both teams were ejected from the tournament, costing Canada a potential gold medal, and the Canadian team, disgusted at what they perceived to be a conspiracy against them, chose to leave rather than stay for the end-of-tournament festivities, from which the Soviet team were banned.
A notable KHL bench-clearing brawl saw all the players of Avangard Omsk and Vityaz Chekhov, except for the goaltenders, begin fighting at 3:34 into the first period. The referees ejected 33 players and both teams' coaches before the game was abandoned as only four players remained; the teams and players were fined a total of 5.6 million rubles ($191,000), with seven players being suspended, and the game was counted as a 5-0 loss for both teams. [11]
Bench-clearing brawls have also been known to occur in other sports, and officials in those sports have been cracking down on such brawls. In 1995, the National Basketball Association changed the penalty for leaving the bench to participate in a brawl from a $500 fine to an automatic one-game suspension.
In 2010, the Northern Territory Football League in Australia ruled that any player found to have left the interchange bench to participate in a melee would be ejected from the match. They would also have their melee fine increased by 25% and receive an automatic one-game suspension.
Bench-clearing brawls do not occur very often in gridiron football. All levels of the game penalize any "substitute who leaves the team box during a fight" (as it is worded in the high school rule books) with automatic ejection and possible further sanctions depending on the league, and the amount of equipment a football player wears greatly increases the risk for injury in a brawl. In addition, on-field umpires and referees move in immediately to break up fights, and any contact by a team member against an official will draw the penalty of ejection from the game, with further sanctions by league officials virtually certain. This also includes on-field penalties that move the ball closer or further from the goal line depending on the team sanctioned, hurting the team's winning chances far more than in other sports. One notable brawl at the college level was between the University of Miami and Florida International University, where tough talk between the two crosstown schools escalated into a brawl with severe consequences for FIU. A notable recent bench-clearing brawl in gridiron football occurred after the conclusion of the 2024 edition of “The Game” between the universities of Michigan and Ohio State, after Michigan players attempted to plant their team’s flag on the Ohio State logo at midfield following their victory. The subsequent brawl lasted several minutes, involving dozens of players and required police intervention to break it up, including the police use of pepper spray against the players.
At least two bench-clearing brawls have taken place in the Lingerie Football League, since renamed the Legends Football League. The first came in 2009 between the Miami Caliente and the New York Majesty; that brawl eventually led to the Majesty suspending operations. Another occurred during the December 9, 2011 LFL game between the Toronto Triumph and the Philadelphia Passion. It was unclear what punishment either team would face as Toronto was already using replacement players due to a mass walkout of the original team earlier in the year.
A minor bench-clearing brawl occurred during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in the quarterfinal match between Argentina and The Netherlands, when Argentinian player Leandro Paredes kicked a ball directly into the Dutch bench after fouling Nathan Aké. This resulted in the Dutch players surrounding Paredes which led to a brawl.
Bench-clearing brawls are prohibited in scholastic competition with the National Federation of State High School Associations specifying the penalty for leaving the bench area to participate in a fight in any sanctioned sport as an automatic ejection and, if actively involved in a fight, an automatic suspension. In addition, school administrators may implement more severe penalties such as disqualification from activities, academic suspension or expulsion. [12] In more severe instances, participants and coaches can face criminal charges (for example, assault and battery and endangerment of a minor, respectively), and entire schools can face sanctions from their state's athletic association, ranging from letters of reprimand, forfeiture of contests, withholding of travel expenses and extended suspensions of players and coaches to, in the most severe cases, cancellation of a team's entire season, prohibition from participation in state tournaments for a period of time, or suspension of a school's entire athletic program.
"Power play" is a sporting term used to describe a period of play where one team has a numerical advantage in players, usually due to a rule violation by the opposing team.
A penalty in ice hockey is a punishment for an infringement of the rules. Most penalties are enforced by sending the offending player to a penalty box for a set number of minutes. During the penalty the player may not participate in play. Penalties are called and enforced by the referee, or in some cases, the linesman. The offending team may not replace the player on the ice, leaving them short-handed as opposed to full strength. When the opposing team is said to be on a power play, they will have one more player on the ice than the short-handed team. The short-handed team is said to be "on the penalty kill" until the penalty expires and the penalized player returns to play. While standards vary somewhat between leagues, most leagues recognize several common varieties of penalties, as well as common infractions.
The penalty box or sin bin is the area in ice hockey, rugby union, rugby league, roller derby and some other sports where a player sits to serve the time of a given penalty, for an offence not severe enough to merit outright expulsion from the contest. Teams are generally not allowed to replace players who have been sent to the penalty box.
Fighting is an established tradition in North American ice hockey, with a long history that involves many levels of amateur and professional play and includes some notable individual fights. Fights may be fought by enforcers, or "goons" —players whose role is to fight and intimidate—on a given team, and are governed by a system of unwritten rules that players, coaches, officials, and the media refer to as "the code". Some fights are spontaneous, while others are premeditated by the participants. While officials tolerate fighting during hockey games, they impose a variety of penalties on players who engage in fights.
Violence in sports usually refers to violent and often unnecessarily harmful intentional physical acts committed during, or motivated by, a sports game, often in relation to contact sports such as American football, ice hockey, rugby football, lacrosse, association football, boxing, mixed martial arts, wrestling, and water polo and, when referring to the players themselves, often involving excessively violent or potentially illegal physical contact beyond the normal levels of contact expected while playing the sport. These acts of violence can include intentional attempts to injure a player or coach by another player or coach, but can also include threats of physical harm or actual physical harm sustained by players or coaches by fans or those engaging in the spectating of sports, or threats and acts of violence performed by fans or spectators upon opposing fans or other spectators.
In basketball, a technical foul is any infraction of the rules penalized as a foul which does not involve physical contact during the course of play between opposing players on the court, or is a foul by a non-player. The most common technical foul is for unsportsmanlike conduct. Technical fouls can be assessed against players, bench personnel, the entire team, or even the crowd. These fouls, and their penalties, are more serious than a personal foul, but not necessarily as serious as a flagrant foul.
In sports, an ejection is the removal of a participant from a contest due to a violation of the sport's rules. The exact violations that lead to an ejection vary depending upon the sport, but common causes for ejection include unsportsmanlike conduct, violent acts against another participant that are beyond the sport's generally accepted standards for such acts, abuse against officials, violations of the sport's rules that the contest official deems to be egregious, or the use of an illegal substance to better a player's game. Most sports have provisions that allow players to be ejected, and many allow for the ejection of coaches, managers, or other non-playing personnel. In sports that use penalty cards, a red card is often used to signal dismissals. In some sports, another player is permitted to enter the game in place of the player who has been ejected, but in others the team is required to continue the game with a reduced number of players.
The Avalanche–Red Wings brawl was a large-scale on-ice melee that occurred March 26, 1997, at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, between two National Hockey League (NHL) rivals: the Colorado Avalanche and Detroit Red Wings. The brawl, which has been nicknamed Bloody Wednesday, Fight Night at the Joe and Brawl in Hockeytown, stemmed from a previous on-ice incident between the two teams during the 1996 Western Conference Finals. The game featured 18 fighting major penalties and 144 minutes in penalties.
Penalty cards are used in many sports as a means of warning, reprimanding or penalising a player, coach or team official. Penalty cards are most commonly used by referees or umpires to indicate that a player has committed an offence. The official will hold the card above their head while looking or pointing toward the player who has committed the offence. This action makes the decision clear to all players, as well as spectators and other officials in a manner that is language-neutral. The colour or shape of the card used by the official indicates the type or seriousness of the offence and the level of punishment that is to be applied. Yellow and red cards are the most common, typically indicating, respectively, cautions and dismissals.
Unsportsmanlike conduct is a foul or offense in many sports that violates the sport's generally accepted rules of sportsmanship and participant conduct. Examples include verbal abuse, taunting of an opponent or a game official, an excessive celebration following a significant play, or feigning injury. The official rules of many sports include a general provision whereby participants or an entire team may be penalized or otherwise sanctioned for unsportsmanlike conduct.
The FIU–Miami football brawl was a bench-clearing brawl that occurred on October 14, 2006, during a college football game between the University of Miami Hurricanes and the Florida International University Golden Panthers at the Miami Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, United States.
Cross-checking is an infraction in the sport of ice hockey, ringette, and lacrosse where a player checks an opponent by using the shaft of their stick with both hands. This article deals chiefly with ice hockey.
John Craighead is a retired professional ice hockey right winger and enforcer. He played for the Toronto Maple Leafs during 1996–97 season, and for various minor league teams in North America and Europe from 1997 to 2005. He holds the Deutsche Eishockey Liga record for penalty minutes for the Thomas Sabo Ice Tigers.
The Punch-up in Piestany was a bench-clearing brawl between Canada and the Soviet Union during the final game of the 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Piešťany, Czechoslovakia on January 4, 1987. The incident resulted in the ejection of both teams, and while the Soviets had already been eliminated from medal contention, the disqualification cost Canada a medal – potentially the gold. The brawl is famous for officials having turned off the arena lights in a desperate attempt to end the 20-minute melee. Much of the blame was placed on Norwegian referee Hans Rønning, who had been selected for the game based on his perceived neutrality rather than experience.
The Hockey Canada Officiating Program is the governing body for on-ice officials for all ice hockey games played under the jurisdiction of Hockey Canada. The Hockey Canada Rulebook provides in-depth explanation and examples of all rules governing hockey in Canada.
The Flyers–Senators brawl was a National Hockey League (NHL) regular season game between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Ottawa Senators that resulted in a league record for penalty minutes. The game was played on March 5, 2004, at the Wachovia Center, the home arena of the Flyers. Philadelphia won the game 5–3. In all, 419 minutes were assessed, passing the previous NHL record of 406. The 213 minutes assessed against Philadelphia was also a record, as was the number of penalty minutes in the third period.
In ice hockey, the Good Friday Massacre was a second-round playoff match-up during the 1984 Stanley Cup playoffs. The game occurred on Good Friday, April 20, 1984, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, between the Quebec Nordiques and the Montreal Canadiens. It is notable less for its series-ending finish than its epic brawl between the players, which spanned multiple periods and resulted in 11 ejections and 252 penalty minutes. It was the most infamous episode of the Battle of Quebec.
The Penguins–Islanders brawl was an incident during a National Hockey League (NHL) regular season ice hockey game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Islanders that resulted in a record for combined penalty minutes for both teams. The game was played on February 11, 2011, at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the home arena of the Islanders at the time. New York won the game 9–3. In all, 65 penalties were assessed, including 15 fighting majors and 21 game misconducts, resulting in a total of 346 penalty minutes.
In various sports, a forfeit is a method in which a match automatically ends, and the forfeiting team loses.
