Briere And Turris Battle In Rare Lightweight Fight
WELLS FARGO CENTER — With a few new scrapes and bruises, Danny Briere took questions in the Flyers’ locker room. At all of a very generous 5-foot-10, 179 pounds, he’s usually not an intimidating force physically, but ask Kyle Turris, on Saturday he was. Not only did Briere record his fifth career hat trick, not only did he win the Flyers the game, he also won a fight.
Briere and Turris had a rare lightweight fight after trading a Briere hook in the crotch for a Turris crosscheck to the back of the head.
“I mean its kind of a back-and-forth play when we both got our minor penalties aside,” said Turris. “He gave me a better shot and I gave him a shot back and we were in the penalty box. When we came out, he kind of gave me a shot and asked me to go and so at the next faceoff we kind of talked back and forth and ended up dropping the gloves.”
With less than two minutes left in the second period of a tied game, Turris accepted Briere’s challenge.
“I thought that that was a cheap shot on his part,” said Briere. “He kind of came down with a cross check to the head when I was in a vulnerable position on the ice. I scraped my face on the ice. So, there was a lot of frustration.”
Both players still wearing their shields, Turris got the early jump, catching Briere on the nose and causing it to bleed slightly. Briere countered with a flurry of punches, including an uppercut that seemed to catch Turris. The two players were separated to the chants of “DAN-NY” from the appreciative Philadelphia crowd.
“I’ll give it to him any day,” said Braydon Coburn.
It was Briere’s first fight since 2009, when he battled San Jose Sharks defenseman Marc-Eduard Vlasic. It was the third of his career, the other being against Mike Comrie, then with the Edmonton Oilers.
It was Kyle Turris’ second ever fight. His first was against former Flyer Kris Versteeg in 2008.
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