Generals, Nationals slug it out

WHITEFISH - Dozens of fights. Sixty penalties. A total of 297 minutes spent in the penalty box. At least 10 ejected players.

Oh, and they played some hockey too.

The Glacier Nationals lost to the Eugene Generals at the Stumptown Ice Den in Whitefish in a NORPAC outing highlighted by dozens of scuffles, multiple full-blown fights and an all-out melee halfway through the third period.

The final score of the Junior A contest was 5-1, but the real story Saturday was the near constant fighting between members of both teams.

It started at the beginning of the second period. Glacier forward Coleman MacDonald and Eugene's Randy Ludwig started brawling just after the faceoff. The two players jawed back and forth from their respective penalty boxes for several minutes.

When Ludwig skated back on the ice, he scored to put the Generals ahead 3-0. Then he skated past the Glacier bench and said a few choice words. He appeared to repeat the routine with 6:17 to go in the period when he scored again to put his team ahead 4-1.

Nationals' owner, general manager and assistant coach Butch Kowalka was ejected from the game following a final brouhaha at the 13-minute mark that included at least 10 players and included both benches.

He blamed the referees for not calling a penalty on Ludwig.

"We complained to the ref, the ref didn't call it," he said. "That's an easy call for a ref. If they chirp the bench, boom, thats an automatic 10 (minute penalty) and an injection. So when a ref allows that to happen, they get bad blood and this is what happens."

Eugene swept the three game series and is now 5-5. The Nationals (2-11) are home again for a three game series with Seattle beginning Nov. 10 at 7:35 p.m.

Kowalka said he hopes the incident doesn't turn away any fans.

"Some fans like it, but some fans don't," he said. "We try to make it a family affair here. We feel like you can bring your young kids with you and I think we're pretty sucessful. From time to time, this is going to happen. But this is our home ice. We're a new team. You skate by our bench and call us a bunch of names on our own ice, stuff like this is going to happen. It's unfortunate."

The final tally was 23 penalties equaling 94 minutes for Eugene. Glacier was called for 34 infractions equaling 203 penalty minutes.

The Nationals' goals were scored by Logan Jones in the second period and Cody Albert in the third period.