If I Fought Brad Marchand

This whole "If I Fought" thing started while watching a Leaf game and witnessing Matt Stajan get slapped around behind the net, with his helmet falling off and his receding hair line overwhelming the TV. I called Matt Stajan a pussy and my mouthy little shit of a brother replied that Stajan could take me, and thus an on-going joke that Matt Stajan could beat me up was born and will now last a life time. This will be an ongoing segment in which I take on some of the weaker NHLers in which I'm overly confident I would win fights against.

If you have been watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs, you may have noticed that Brad Marchand is a little shit and seems to have opposing teams hating him from the get go. Well that was my first reaction to him when I first met him a few years ago at a Boston Pizza.

It was the spring of 2008 and Brad was still playing for the Halifax Mooseheads of the QMJHL. It was the playoffs and I can remember watching one of their games against the Gatineau Olympiques who had Claude Giroux dangling everyone all over the ice (he had 51 points in 19 playoff games that year). I can remember Marchand taking a penalty and Halifax's home fans booing him and calling him a punk. It was very odd.

The Mooseheads ended up losing the game and afterwards I was pretty hungry and for some odd reason craving an ice cold Moosehead - I guess product name placement really does work. So I headed to the local Boston Pizza (it wasn't a Montreal or Vancouver Pizza yet). When I got there most of the place was roped off and I was told the Marchand family had booked up most of the place. I don't like to judge ,but wow I felt like I was at a motor cross race with most of the family members wearing Nascar and Mosport gear. They looked like a family of Go-Karters or something.

I was able to get a small table near the washrooms, but didn't care much because I was eating and having a cold beer with a few friends. The table was for 2 and there were 5 of us, so we rotated who got to sit and eat. It sucked, but what can you do?

Well as I was leaning against the wall by the washroom drinking my beer guess who walks by and gives me a little bump. Yes, Mr. Brad Marchand himself. Before I could even say anything he says to me - "What are you going to do buds? I'm Brad Marchand and I run this town". At first I thought it was kinda clever to say "run this town" as this was years before Rhianna and Jay-Z's song "Run This Town" came out. It was pretty ground-breaking at the time.

I just laughed and turned away. Yes, we lined up pretty much the same. He is 5"9 and 190lbs and I am just over 5"10 with a little more beer muscle at 195lbs. The tale of the tape was pretty even, but I wasn't going to take a chance with all his inbred family members around, so I just backed down and knew that I would have a chance to get him one day.

Jump to that day where I'm magically in the NHL. It would be a home game in Boston and the Bruins fans would be calling for blood early on after I checked Zdeno Chara into the stanchon by the benches and he started convulsing on the ice (no disciplanary action would come from it). It was shocking and gruesome to see, but the game had to go on.

Brad Marchand would be chirping me from the bench and I knew we'd go soon, or else I would risk getting jumped by the rest of the Bruins, including Tim Thomas. As fate would have it, Marchand would be on the ice the next shift and come right at me with a big hit. It was very odd that he would try and hit me nose first, but I guess that is the biggest part of his body so it was a nice try.

As soon as he hits me I have one glove off already and start landing some solid uppercuts right off his beak. He hits me with a right, but it feels like I just got hit with a pillow. I start unloading lefts off his nose and start aiming for his eyebrows to get them gushing. I want to make sure he bleeds all over the ice so he remembers to save me a table at Boston Pizza.

We both fall to the ice as the linesmen jump in to break it up, and one for the linesmen shrieks out in pain - he got poked in the eye by Marchand's bloody, massive nose.