New York police, firefighters brawl at charity hockey game

If only New York had a large, disciplined group of government employees whose job it was to prevent giant fights.

Law and order was briefly suspended on the ice at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Sunday when hockey players from the New York Police Department and the Fire Department of New York got into a bench-clearing brawl with one another during a charity game.

The combat was well documented on social media by the crowd of fans in attendance, which both howled with boos and roared with delight, adding chants like “Dun-kin’ Do-nuts!”

The fight apparently broke out when the game was tied 3-3, according to YouTube footage of the brawl (embedded at the bottom of this story). You can get a closer look at some of New York’s finest pummeling one another into the ice in this Instagram video.

The fighting calmed down after a minute or so, with helmets and gloves (or anything that could conceivably be used to help administer an assault under New York state law) scattered over the ice.

The fire department’s hockey team did not immediately respond to a Los Angeles Times request for comment Sunday evening. A spokesman for the New York Police Department declined to comment to The Times.

The police department’s hockey team did make a brief statement on its Facebook page Sunday evening about the outcome of the game: “NYPD Victory!!”

In other news, an advertisement for the game on the fire department hockey team’s website accurately promised that the teams would “battle it out” on the ice.

Here’s the highlight reel: