‘The Terminal List’ Star, Taylor Kitsch, Recalls Epic Brawl From His Junior Hockey Days: “This Kid Could Chuck ‘Em”

Taylor Kitsch is quite the storyteller.

Maybe that’s one of a reasons why Kitsch has been a part of plenty of recognizable movies and TV shows, including but not limited to John Carter, Lone Survivor, American Primeval, and Friday Night Lights. If you are in need of a refresher, Taylor played running back Tim Riggins in the iconic series.

If that jogged your memory, you might be interested to know that Kitsch recently revealed that the Riggins house was an actual dump.

Outside of the Friday Night Lights universe, the 44-year-old Canadian actor has made a living playing tough guy, military types throughout his career. That’s what he does best, and that’s who he plays in the The Terminal List: Dark Wolf. In fact, this new show is a prequel series to the original The Terminal List, and focuses in on Kitsch’s character, Ben Edwards.

If you’ve watched either show, you know that Kitsch plays a hard-nosed, no-fight-too-big type of person… and it seems as though that’s not far from who he actually is in real life. In his younger days, Kitsch was an avid hockey player – and a talented one at that. He played in the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL) for the Langley Hornets, and had a promising career shaping up before a knee injury in 2002 ended any chance of him going pro.

It was around that time that his life started to go down the path of acting, and all things considered, I’d say that worked out okay for Kitsch.

That being said, he still loves to reminisce about his hockey playing days, and while he was a guest on the Empty Netters show, he told the hilarious and unbelievable story of how his scrappy (but not fight-ready) Langley Hornets team once got into an all-out brawl that was way above their abilities.

It all started when the opposing team railroaded the goalie of Kitsch’s team, which basically means the fight is on. The Hornets dropped their gloves – knowing the code of the sport – and went after their opponents on the ice. Kitsch got paired against a guy named Bobby Henderson, who is now a hockey coach (after having a respectable hockey career).

I only mention that because he’s an important part of the story… the story of how the Hornets got their collective you-know-what kicked. Kitsch vividly remembers one of his blonde-haired teammates absolutely getting the works from a more experienced fighter on the other team:

“He’s getting absolutely pummeled by this guy, and he had blonde hair, and it literally looks like you dipped his head in red paint. So I look across my zone, and there’s Bobby Henderson, and he’s a heavyweight in the league. He was a fighter in junior B at 14 or 15 years old. This kid could f***ing chuck em’.”

See… I told you Bobby Henderson would come up.

Despite knowing that he was outsized and outmatched, Kitsch rushed into the line of fire in the spirit of hockey. And as he was doing so, he also remembers watching two of his other teammates who were supposed to have his back jumping over the wall and into the bench area to safety:

“I dropped my gloves across the zone and make eye contact with Henderson, and I’m like, ‘I gotta go.’ My girlfriend at the time is in the stands, and I look over and my two other line mates – one kid who just came down from the Vancouver Giants – I won’t name them, because it’s really (embarrassing).  It’s f***ing sacrilegious what they did.

I’m skating over to Bobby Henderson. He’s got 20-plus pounds on me. He’s a big boy, and has probably (had) 100 more fights than I had. So it’s like, ‘Alright, I’m in one.’ And it’s right in front of our bench. I look over and those two forwards jump over onto our bench. So now it’s five on three.”

Kitsch sounds like the type of guy you want on your team. Those other two teammates? Not so much.

Though Taylor put forth a valiant effort on the ice, he and the other Hornets didn’t come out of the fight clean. I can only imagine the amount of blood that would have drenched the ice with how the Canadian lays out this scene:

“I broke my nose. The refs are holding… there’s another kid, God bless him, getting absolutely pumped. Brandon was his name, so we’re getting absolutely smoked. You can’t even see the hornet on my jersey, there’s so much blood on it. I got Bobby well too, so it was more of a draw, I think. I could be flattering myself.”

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Absolute chaos.

Kitsch goes on to talk about how he ripped his two teammates for jumping the boards (being cowards), and how another one of his teammates kept the fight going once the contest resumed. It’s one of the wilder hockey fight stories you’ll hear, and you can catch it all in this segment from a recent episode of Empty Netters.

Honestly, can we get Taylor to write and direct a hockey movie? I think it would be killer…

The post ‘The Terminal List’ Star, Taylor Kitsch, Recalls Epic Brawl From His Junior Hockey Days: “This Kid Could Chuck ‘Em” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.