SAGINAW, Mich. – The Sarnia Sting lost another hockey game Saturday night, but at least they didn’t go down without a fight.

The Saginaw Spirit scored all their goals on the power play in defeating the Sting 3-1 before 2,613 fans at the Dow Event Centre in Ontario Hockey League play.
 

But for the first time in three years, the Sting were involved in a line brawl 21 seconds into the third period. Even the two goalies from each team were involved in a fight.  When the dust had settled, seven players were ejected, three from the Sting.
 

The brawl began when Mitch Fillman of the Spirit charged Sting forward Kale Kerbashian along the boards, just inside the Saginaw blueline. Kerbashian’s teammates quickly came to his rescue. Fillman was handed a five-minute match penalty for the initial hit. Kerbashian was not seriously injured and stayed in the game.
 

“Their guy deserved the match penalty. It was cheap shot and a gutless play,” said Sting head coach Dave MacQueen.
 

Sting players, Brett Appio, Ron Soucie and goalie Adam Courchaine received fighting majors and automatic game misconducts for being the second, third and fourth fights on the same stoppage. Craig Hottot escaped with just a major for fighting.
 

“I always wanted to be in a goalie fight,” said Courchaine, who was making his debut in a Sting uniform after joining the team on Friday from Providence of the American Hockey League. “I’ve never been in a fight before. When the brawl started  I asked their guy (Anthony Peters) to go and he obliged. We met at center ice.”
 

The line brawl was precipitated by three separate fights in the second period. One of the fights took place between Jordan Hill of the Sting and Cody Sol of the Spirit after Sol drilled Ben O’Quinn of the Sting with a hard open ice check.
 

O’Quinn lay on the ice for several minutes before being helped off. He suffered a concussion and is out indefinitely. Sol was not given a penalty for the hit.
 

“I have to watch the tape to see the hit again,” said MacQueen. “I know Ben took a suicide pass from a teammate. Their guy seemed to come a long way to make the hit, but it appeared not to be an illegal hit.”  As for the overall fisticuffs MacQueen said, “I liked the way we stuck up for one another.”
 

As for the game itself, the teams were scoreless after one period before Saginaw jumped out to a 2-0 lead in period two scoring two power play goals just over two minutes apart. Sarnia  closed the gap to one early in the third period before Saginaw scored their third goal at 12:45.
 

“I didn’t think we showed the same jump and energy early in the game like we had in the second half of the previous game,” said MacQueen. “I thought we would feed off that third period we had against London. But this is a tough building to play in and Saginaw plays an aggressive style in their building. “I thought we didn’t respond at times to that aggressive play. We can’t have seven or eight passengers. But we also weren’t doing the little things again. We also weren’t bearing down on our chances.”
 

The coach added, “but we clawed our way back into the game down at 2-1. But then Brandon Alderson was given an atrocious penalty by the referee for tripping. The guy fell on his own. They scored on that power play and that was the game.”
 

The Spirit opened the scoring at 1:39 of period two when Josh Shalla found the top corner over the catching glove of Courchaine from a sharp angle. The led went to 2-0 at 4:01 when Jordan Skellett drilled home a high slapshot from the face-off circle.
 

Sarnia closed the gap to 2-1 at 3:35 of period three on a two-man advantage when Zack MacQueen scored his second goal of the season banging home a passout from Jesse Stoughton. Brent Sullivan also assisted on the play.
 

But the Spirit restored their two-goal lead at 12:45 when Shalla got his second of the game knocking in a goalmouth pass.

Saginaw finished with a 35-20 edge in shots on goal. Shayne Campbell replaced Courchaine after he was ejected while Edward Pasquale came for the Spirit for Peters.
 

Coach MacQueen was happy with what he saw from Courchaine.

“He’s a veteran guy who just looks comfortable in net. He doesn’t overplay his angles and you could see he gave our young team a lot of confidence.”  Courchaine said he enjoyed his first game in a Sting uniform.
 

“It was fun. It was different style of game than in the pros. I would have liked to have the first goal back, but I just tried to keep our team in the game. The referee didn’t seem to be calling the game very fair. It was a gutless hit on Kerbashian and I guess I lost my mind like everybody else on the ice.”
 

He added, “hopefully as an older play I can be a leader for the Sting. As soon as I got to Sarnia on Friday everyone went out of their way to make me feel welcome and I really appreciate that.”
 

Courchaine, who makes his home in Kanata, came to the Sting in the off-season in a trade with the Ottawa 67s. Last year he posted a 13-11-2  record at a 3.78 goals against average.