The Loop

Shortest player in NHL picks (and wins) fight against guy who can ride all the rides at Disney World

February 21, 2020
Screen Shot 2020-02-21 at 10.29.34 AM.png

Never underestimate a short guy. On dating apps, maybe you get away with it. But in the arena of bar fights, road-rage altercations, and bagel-based brouhahas, there is no more dangerous predator on earth. They're little wolverines, itching to unleash an adulthood of pent-up frustration and insecurity down upon your head . . . provided they can reach it, of course. So when we woke up Friday morning and saw Nathan Gerbe, the shortest player in the NHL, trending for not only picking, but winning, a fight against the Flyers' Travis Sanheim, we weren't surprised in the least. Impressed? Sure. But surprised? Not in a million trips around the sun.

The size XS Blue Jacket stands at 5' 4". Sanheim at 6' 3". But big tree, as they say, fall hard, and after stepping in to protect teammate Claude Giroux after a hit late in the second period, Sanheim toppled like an old oak in a hurricane. By the time the refs had stopped the fight, Gerbe had taken things down to his level (the floor), raining itty bitty blows upon Sanheim as the pair lay prone on the ice. Gerbe, as you maybe shocked to learn, was the first take off his gloves.

As Sports Illustrated astutely points out, this wasn't Gerbe first attempt at cutting a much larger man down to size, either. Earlier this month, Gerbe was involved in a dust-up with the Devils' Damon Severson, once again using his low center of gravity to bring the fight to the mat, where his ferret-like ferocity truly shines.

We hope the rest of the NHL is taking notes, because someone is going to have to put a stop to Gerbe's warpath before he gets too big for his children's britches.