Lightning/NHL

Brotherly love

Yes, that says love. And yes, those players are fighting. But both know the other only wants to win a job. And afterward, it's back to being friends.

By DAMIAN CRISTODERO
Published September 18, 2006

	[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]
	Brandon Elliott, left, takes on Geoff Waugh during a Lightning scrimmage on Saturday. By Sunday, the fight had been forgotten and there were no hard feelings.

BRANDON - Brandon Elliott and Geoff Waugh had nothing but good things to say about each other Sunday. Notable because on Saturday, the Lightning prospects spent about a minute trying to beat each other's brains in.

The setting: a training camp scrimmage at the Ice Sports Forum.

Waugh, a 6-foot-4, 215-pound defenseman, asked Elliott, a 6-4, 225-pound wing, if he wanted to go.

Elliott agreed, and the punches flew, some landing so flush that Elliott still cannot shake hands with his usual firm grip.

But to hear the two speak on reflection, it was all in a day's work and there were no hard feelings.

"We're all battling for spots, and you just want to set an example," Waugh said. "Right after, we gave each other a pat on the back. I have all the respect in the world for him."

"He just wanted to show himself," Elliott said. "It's competition."

The intensity of which can be great, especially in a camp such as Tampa Bay's, where jobs are open and time short to impress.

Most amazing, though, is how quickly these battles apparently are forgotten. Imagine having a fist fight with someone at your office. Would you ever talk to or even look at the person again?

Hockey is another world.

Grudges? No way, said Bill Barber, the Lightning's director of player personnel.

Divisions in the locker room? Forget it, captain Tim Taylor said. In fact, Taylor said a good intrasquad fight can bring a team together.

"It sends a message that everyone is working hard and you're pushing each other," Taylor said.

"Tempers flare a bit, and you get that edge."

"As long as no one gets hurt, you love the intensity," said Barber, who played 12 seasons for the Flyers.

"If anything, it's looking for respect, and respect has a lot to do with bonding and chemistry on a hockey team. They're competing hard, and things happen on the ice. And that bond is even stronger because they know one is going to battle for the other, and that's a healthy thing to have."

To be clear, NHL training camps are not Palookaville.

As fighting has been taken out of the game, it has become the exception rather than the rule during camps and especially during regular-season practice.

But it's still rough out there.

During Saturday's scrimmage, prospect Blair Jones cut defenseman Andy Delmore under his right eye with an inadvertent high stick.

Delmore retaliated by decking Jones with a double-fisted hit to the head.

Taylor recalled a "vicious" brawl he saw after a Red Wings practice in 1993 between mega-heavyweight Bob Probert and Keith Primeau.

A few seasons back, Tampa Bay's Ruslan Fedotenko and Brad Lukowich got into it during practice.

"It's just when you're in the battle,' Fedotenko said. "Somebody hits somebody, cross check, you go back and you just drop the gloves and go."

The common denominator:

"It's pretty much forgotten right away," Fedotenko said. "A couple of minutes or an hour after, it's done."

Delmore said that after the scrimmage, he chatted with Jones to clear the air.

"I just have a job to do out there, and we're all battling for spots," Delmore said.

"It's just the heat of battle."

"Usually," Lightning defenseman Luke Richardson said, "when it's over and your adrenaline comes down, you look at each other and laugh."

Or at least understand the forces at play.

"It's the nature of the game," said Lightning associate coach Craig Ramsay, who spent 14 seasons with the Sabres. "I think the competitive nature of our players and the competitive nature of the game lends itself to two people once in a while having a misunderstanding that ends up with the gloves being thrown off.

"I've seen guys who had a pretty good fight in training camp go out and have a beer and talk about it, and everybody gets involved and they talk about the fight and why it happened. So in my mind, it's almost like a team-building thing that the players will say, 'We're competing. We're trying hard, and this is the nature of what we're trying to accomplish.' "

Waugh, 23, and Elliott, 22, wanted to show coaches and management the grit behind their baby faces.

"I'm showing them I'm willing," Waugh said. "(Elliott) is one of the toughest guys in camp. I thought, whatever. I won't back down from anyone. I'll stick up for my teammates and basically do anything that's asked to benefit the team."

Elliott said fighting a teammate "is not easy" but will battle him like any other opponent.

"You fight as best you can because he's doing the same," he said.

But when a teammate goes down, "You don't keep swinging."

Then there is the golden rule.

"There are no grudges whatsoever," Waugh said.

"Brothers fight all the time," Elliott said, "and there are no hard feelings."

[Last modified September 18, 2006, 02:17:27]