BY JOHN PACKETT
Renegades Writer

When the Knoxville Ice Bears visit the Coliseum Wednesday night to play the Richmond Renegades, it ought to be interesting. 

After the final horn of Richmond’s 2-0 victory over Knoxville last Wednesday, the players didn’t head for the locker room as they normally do.
Instead, the Ice Bears left their bench and milled around on their side of center ice. After congratulating Doug Groenestege for his shutout, the Renegades stayed on the ice to see what might develop.
Some background. With two seconds left, Ben Manny tried to start something with Richmond’s Danny White in the corner. White, the Renegades leading scorer, isn’t a fighter, so several teammates quickly stepped in. Both got two minutes for roughing.

With 16 seconds left, Jeff Hansen, the Ice Bears’ enforcer, came onto the ice for a faceoff in Richmond’s end. He was apparently looking for someone to drop the gloves with, so David Mitchell came off the bench for the Renegades. As soon as the puck dropped, the two squared off and moved to center ice for a heavyweight bout. Both landed several blows, but Hansen appeared to get the best of it at the end.

The only problem was, Richmond coach John Brophy didn’t send Mitchell out. The players did, and Brophy was disturbed after the game because he didn’t want Mitchell, who hadn’t played much to that point, to think he had put him on the ice just to get into a fight.

“I want to make it clear that I didn’t put Mitchell out there,” Brophy said. A few days later, he said, “I was upset because I didn’t know what was going on, but the players knew what was up. They were all set to run our goaltender. It was a good thing for [Mitchell] to come on the ice.”

J.J. Wrobel, one of Richmond’s veterans, felt it was necessary to have some muscle on the ice because of what the Ice Bears had done.

“It was a situation where I don’t think they had one of their leading goal scorers on the ice,” Wrobel said. “There isn’t a team that wants to get shut out. For whatever reason, I think their plan was to win the draw back and throw the puck to the net and send their guys crashing to the net hoping to get a goal. They sent out their muscle and if something had happened to Dougie, it’s just nice to have somebody out there like Mitch.

“Not to fight necessarily but to make sure those guys know that they can’t just do what they want out there either.”

Could there be a continuation of the hostilities at this week’s game, scheduled for a 7:35 p.m. faceoff?

“You can talk up all the hype you want, but when it comes down to it, I think you’re going to see a lot more games like the Huntsville game [3-2 Richmond win on Saturday], because coming down the stretch, every team is playing for a [playoff] position. Obviously, our goal is first place, but theirs is probably not far from that, too.  By no means are you going to see some kind of gong show, because neither team can afford it.

“Whatever happens, happens. It’ll be an intense game, that’s for sure. We’ve got four games in five nights, so we want to start off right with a win.”