Arizona State and Michigan Tech Devolves into Huge Fight in the Handshake Line with Coaches and Players Involved

Arizona State and Michigan Tech was just like any other college hockey game before it turned into a melee.

Michigan Tech's men's hockey team beat Arizona State's by a score of 5-3 but in the handshake line was when everything went down.

FIGHT!!!!

Michigan Tech and Arizona State players and coaches go at it after Techs 5-3 win. pic.twitter.com/ctcCf2XEE5

— Bryce Derouin (@B_DEROUIN) February 18, 2018

The players on both sides began fighting in the handshake line, but it began to subside. When the coaches got involved, it sparked an entirely new fight among the players.

Anyone looking for footage of the fight here is part of it.

ASU coach Greg Powers said Tech coach Joe Shawhan was bush league and his behavior was unacceptable. Shawhan said he was just trying to go talk to the opposing coaching staff with no bad intentions. pic.twitter.com/sFE5IorEGJ

— Eden Laase (@eden_laase) February 18, 2018

Coach Greg Powers of Arizona State made his way right over to coach Joe Shawhan of Michigan Tech shoves were thrown, and around them, players from both sides were throwing punches once again.

The coaches on both sides have different recollections of what happened. Both didn't seem remorseful for the incident during their post-game interviews.

“Their coach took the liberty of coming onto the ice and going after one of our players,” Powers said. “That is unacceptable. It is unacceptable on every level. It’s the oldest rule in the book; you don’t go at a player on the opposing team, you don’t talk to a player on the opposing team. He not only did it, he got on the ice and came after him. It is absolutely bush league, and doesn’t surprise me with that guy.”

Shawhan viewed it more as a misunderstanding than anything else.

“It looked a lot worse than it was,” Shawhan said. “I was going across the ice to just talk to their coaches about the stuff that went on at the end. There was nothing meant by it. I was going across to talk to them, and that was it. It was just the heat of the battle, nothing intended, nothing implied.”

Both have since released statements expressing regret that the incident happened. Who could have guessed that two teams separated by over 2,000 miles would have such animosity between them?

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