The World Hockey Invitational tournament claims to be the "largest AAA hockey tournament in the world" when it's held every year in Chicago in November. This year the tournament organizers decided to expand to Latvia for the first time giving U10 through U16 teams the opportunity to play against international competition.
On Friday, U16 teams from Bauer Select and KHL club Lokomotiv played the first of their three round robin games. Not long after Lokomotiv scored to a take a 4-0 lead in the third period -- a lead they would hold -- the game devolved into an all-out bench-clearing brawl:
There were 56 penalty minutes handed out in the final two seconds of that game, including four 10-minute misconducts. But the bad blood didn't stop there.
On Saturday, the U14 teams from both clubs met, with the Bauer 98s taking s 3-2 win this time; but like their U16 mates, the game ended with a brawl after time expired (some NSFW language):
Seven players were handed 20-minute game misconducts and you can bet all four teams featured the end-of-tournament PIMs leaders in their respective age groups.
The tournament ended on Sunday with Lokomotiv taking the U16 group in the playoffs and the U14 Lokomotiv or Bauer Select squads falling short in theirs.
Follow Sean Leahy on Twitter at @Sean_Leahy
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