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Via Puck Daddy comes this video of a disgusting brawl between Keller High School and Arlington-Martin High School in the Texas State Championship game over the weekend. Keller is in the white shirts, Arlington-Martin is in the black, and the rough stuff is already starting in the corner when the video picks up.
As you can see early on in the video, Arlington-Martin forward Jeff SoRelle, No. 26, laid a brutal, illegal, disgusting hit on a Keller player along the wall. As he skates away from the scene of the crime, Keller's Braxton Mills, No. 3, flies in to retaliate for the initial hit, barreling into SoRelle from the blindside, dislodging his helmet.
Equally as damaging, equally as abhorrent.
We don't know if there's a back story here (and of course, simple frustration is a possibility since Keller won the game 9-3), but honestly, it doesn't matter. There's nothing that can be said to justify that type of hit, even Mills' retaliatory effort. Problems with this stuff exist at every level of the game, and it needs to be clear to everybody from the NHL to pee wee levels that this type of stuff can't happen.
After an event like this, where security has to break up the situation and parents (?) are running onto the ice to tend to their children's injuries, how many kids are going to quit the sport?
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