Last week former Bruins defenseman and coach Mike Milbury charged the ice during a Boston-area exhibition Pee-Wee hockey game he was coaching to intervene in an altercation between two prepubescent teens. He was charged with assault and battery on a child and is blaming a flashback from his playing days for the incident.
“Have you seen how big 12-year-old kids get these days? That little goon should be charged as well.” said Milbury as he left a Brookline police station. “When we tied up we were practically looking each other in the eye.”
With the 32nd anniversary of the big fight between Bruins players and Rangers fans at Madison Square Garden just a few days away Milbury admitted to getting caught up in the moment.
“I don’t know what I had been drinking the night before but I swear I saw [Terry] O’Reily and [Peter] McNab charging out of the stands and onto the ice. Something snapped and I followed them.”
One witness, who asked to remain anonymous because Milbury coaches his son, said, “The funniest part was trying to watch him run across the ice. What a friggin’ loon.”
As soon as he reached the opposing team’s player Milbury started berating him with a series of expletives and threats. He then dropped to the ice and tried to pull the kid’s left skate off. A mass of parents rushed over the boards and eventually broke up the ruckus. Two dads from neighboring Roxbury pulled Milbury out of the crowd and zip-tied him to the steering wheel of a Zamboni.
Unlike in 1979 trying to hit somebody with a shoe or a skate is now considered assault. Milbury will eventually have to appear in Brookline District Court to face the charges levied against him.
