WATCH: Hockey Player Gets Knocked Out Cold After In-Game Fight Broke Out

In most professional sports, in-game fights aren’t usually allowed.

If a scuffle does break out in a sport such as basketball, the players involved automatically get ejected and are usually fined as well as suspended for a number of games.

In the sport of ice hockey, however, it’s a completely different story.

In hockey, athletes are, in fact, allowed to drop their gloves and throw down without the consequence of ejection or sanction. The only form of punishment that hockey players get for starting a rink tussle is a five-minute penalty. Anything excessive, of course, will lead to greater sanctions.

In fact, fighting in ice hockey has become as much--if not more of--an attraction as the game itself.

Given the highly-physical nature of hockey, it’s understandable that players lose their cool. A cheap shot or a hit that was a tad bit too strong will often lead to little fisticuffs.

Such was the scene during Monday’s National Hockey League matchup between the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames.

Oilers forward Jujhar Khaira came in and landed a pretty cheap shot on Flames’ defenseman Oliver Kylington. The replay showed Khaira blasting Kylington’s head with a shoulder hit.

With no penalty being called, Kylington’s teammate Brett Ritchie took vengeance into his own hands and challenged Khaira to a fistfight. Khaira obliged and the two went at each other, throwing hard punches.

Ritchie bombarded Khaira with right hands before landing one on the jaw and separating him from his senses.

Khaira would end up missing the rest of the game and was out for the following game as well.

Ritchie and the Flames escaped with a 4-3 win but would get clobbered by the Oilers, 7-3, in the rematch just two days later.

The Oilers are currently sitting at third in the NHL’s Central Division with 19 wins, 13 losses, and 38 points. The Flames, meanwhile, are at sixth with 14 wins, 13 losses, and 3 overtime losses for 31 points.