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Winter Classic: Erskine-Rupp fight highlights a scoreless first period

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After one period of play in the 2011 Winter Classic, both teams came out flying on the wet surface at Heinz Field but weren’t able to punch home a goal, ending the period 0-0. Each team is coming out hitting and skating hard and fast despite the tougher-than-normal conditions.

The highlight of the first period came at 11:52 when Pittsburgh’s Mike Rupp and Washington’s John Erskine dropped the gloves and had themselves a fight fitting of a prime time setting under the lights with both players landing haymakers. Safe to say that these two easily topped last year’s Winter Classic brawl between Shawn Thornton and Dan Carcillo.

Goalies Semyon Varlamov and Marc-Andre Fleury made some great saves in the period to keep the score level at zero. Varlamov finished with 16 saves while Fleury had 12.