July 07, 2016
A couple of days after July 4th, there was talk of some old fireworks at Skate Zone in Voorhees.
Back in January, during a random Western Hockey League game, there was friction between a couple of the Flyers’ top prospects. In the GIF below, you can see the Calgary Hitmen’s Travis Sanheim and the Brandon Wheat Kings’ Ivan Provorov wrestling on the ground:
(GIF via @SonsofPenn)
This week in New Jersey, Sanheim and Provorov are back to being teammates and the top two blueliners at camp. And according to Sanheim, they’ve since joked about the play.
“I don’t think it really mattered who it was there, I was going to do the exact same thing,” Sanheim said. “I think that was something he would’ve done the same as well.
“Off the ice, we’re still friends and we hang out when we’re here at camp and stuff. But when it comes to on the ice, we have that competitive [streak] as well.”
Sanheim was the initiator of the scrum, and his reasoning was that Provorov went truck stick in the open ice against one of his teammates:
“I thought it was a clean check and he wanted to step up for his teammate,” Provorov said. “I think even though we’re friends off the ice, there’s no friends off the ice no matter who you play against.
Maybe the taller and skinnier Sanheim was fortunate that not too many punches were thrown, as Provorov has been taking boxing lessons for the past 10 years. Both players received 10-minute misconduct penalties, which ended their respective nights.
“We play hard on the ice, and after the game is over, it’s all good,” Provorov said.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
