Loudmouth golfer roughed up by ex-NHLer apologizes: 'Dropped like a bucket of balls'
'I lost my cool and I learned from it,' victim says in social media apology
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The Hawaiian shirt-clad man who was on the receiving end of a beatdown at the hands of former NHL enforcer Nick Tarnasky has broken his silence.
Tarnasky, who played in the NHL between 2005 and 2010, pounded on and flung into a pond a fellow golfer at the Alberta Springs Golf Resort earlier this month when he and his pals got into a verbal altercation that turned physical.
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Loudmouth golfer roughed up by ex-NHLer apologizes: 'Dropped like a bucket of balls' Back to video
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In a video posted to Facebook and Instagram and shared on X, the victim, Trevor Ogilvie, apologized for instigating the incident just outside of Red Deer, Alta., and blamed his drinking for the attack.
“Not my finest moment, I know,” said Ogilvie in a selfie-style video. “Played 36 holes of golf, drank way too much and my mouth ran faster than my brain.”
In the viral beatdown that was shared on social media, a man who appears to be Tarnasky tells a group of golfers in front of him to either hurry up or let him and his friends play ahead.
“They’ve been sitting there for 23 f—ing minutes,” Tarnasky says at the beginning of the 2 1/2-minute exchange, which was first posted to Reddit by user YEGG35.
Ogilvie yells back: “Well, cry about it! F—in’ cry about it! F—in’ cry about it!”
In his apology video, Ogilvie said he was sorry to “anyone who had to deal with me that day.”
“Yup, that’s me guys,” Ogilvie admits with a chuckle. “The guy that got dropped like a bucket of balls in a pond. Not my finest moment, I know. Looks real bad.”
Ogilvie then offered up an apology to Tarnasky for starting the fight.
“All jokes aside, guys, I’d like to apologize to all the folks on the course, anyone caught up in it and anyone who had to deal with me that day. I lost my cool and I learned from it. Just one of those days where you should have kept the cart on the path,” he said.
Ogilvie concluded his 49-second message by telling viewers, “Stay hydrated, keep your stick on the ice, maybe stick to 18.”
Hockey fans praised Ogilvie for owning up to his mistake of being the aggressor.
“Taking it on the chin is a lost art these days. Respect,” one person wrote on X, with another adding, “This is the most manned up thing I’ve seen in a long time. Props for standing tall and admitting your mistake.”
A third suggested the two hit the links for a game of golf. “Would be the ultimate redemption story if these guys played 18 together,” they wrote.
The thrashing racked up millions of views after eagle-eyed NHL fans identified Ogilvie’s opponent as likely being Tarnasky.
When Tarnasky warns him, “You’re not scaring anybody,” Ogilvie becomes more agitated, hurling his sunglasses on the ground, ripping off his gloves and yelling, “Let’s f—in’ go, man. Ho, ho, ho,” before charging the former enforcer.
Tarnasky immediately sends him flying into a nearby pond, which should have been the end of it. But a soaked Ogilvie staggers out of the water and tries to square up with the ex-NHLer again, only to be laid out by five punches to the noggin that were punctuated by Tarnasky yelling out “bang” after each blow.
“Enough! Enough! Get out!” Tarnasky, who coaches an under-17 team, screams as he chucks the dazed gasbag into the grass a final time.
Ogilvie eventually stumbles away, clearly not realizing who he had run up against. During his 13 years as a pro hockey player, which included 245 NHL games with Tampa Bay and Florida, Tarnasky racked up 297 penalty minutes fighting tough guys like Tanner Glass, Aaron Asham, Zenon Konopka and Milan Lucic.
“He wasn’t a hockey player who fought occasionally. He was a fighter who sometimes managed to play ice hockey,” Jordie Demcher of Barstool Sports said of Tarnasky, according to the Edmonton Journal. “He was bashing dudes’ skulls open while he was skating on a sheet of ice. Do you really think he was even going to break a sweat having to beat the s— out of some nerd while standing on foot? So let this be a lesson to all the guys out there who have a short fuse and have had too much to drink – if you’re going to challenge a guy to a fight, maybe do your homework first.
“At least figure out his name and do a quick Google search. You might think you’re just fighting some random massive mutant who was going to kick your ass anyway. But next thing you know, you’re dealing with a guy who was legitimately a professional ass kicker. Check the game notes, bud.”
In the wake of the fight, Ogilvie shared a selfie of himself claiming he was unscathed.
“Just a tiny lil black eye,” the man wrote over the pic with his tongue sticking out, “thats it thats (stet) all boys.”
Red Deer Minor Hockey is conducting an investigation into the video, but police confirmed Tarnasky is not a subject of a police investigation.
“It appears to be a consensual fight,” RCMP Const. Cory Riggs told the Red Deer Advocate.
We’ll hear more from Tarnasky when he appears on Paul Bissonnette’s Spittin’ Chiclets podcast this week.
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