It was another fight, just another fight in the AHL of which I would never have been aware if not for Daniel Carcillo’s tweet on Thursday. Or maybe I’d have become aware of the bout in Stockton, Calif., once it was plastered onto the home page of Hockeyfights.com as its “featured fight.”

Of course it was.

Because what says “featured fight” more than a one-on-one at center ice in which one guy knocks the other one unconscious, as was the case last Saturday night when Stockton’s Colby Cave KO’d Bakersfield’s Martin Pospisil at 7:01 of the first period?

The scene, as I suggested upon retweeting @carbombboom13’s entry, was revolting. All of it, including the fans leaping to their feet and cheering wildly when the 19-year-old Pospisil crumpled to the ice. We are moving into the 2020s, armed with irrefutable medical evidence regarding the long-term damage of taking repeated blows to the head no matter what any league’s attorneys posit, and here is hockey across North America not so far removed from the days of Spartacus.

I’m Colby Cave! I’m Colby Cave! I am. I am. I’m Colby Cave!

Once, I’d have been among those fans. In fact, I was, from the side balcony, when Vic Hadfield and Henri Richard staged their series of bouts in the penalty box at the old Garden. I was, from the blue seats, during the myriad bench-clearing brawls of the ’70s, including the ones in the playoffs when Eddie Giacomin did (or did not) tell Derek Sanderson there was a bounty on his head and the one in 1971 when Hadfield wound up throwing Bernie Parent’s mask into the stands.

But that was a different time. Players were smaller, the impact of their punches likely less damaging. We didn’t know about the devastating effect of concussions. It was a time when hockey was equal parts skill and intimidation, and a time of visceral hatred between NHL rivals. A time of wood sticks, of players going without helmets and goaltenders without masks; a time of 2:30 shifts, limited backchecking and of lumbering stay-at-home defensemen; a time when pro hockey in North America was played exclusively by North Americans.

Prehistoric times, in relative terms. Of those attendant traits, only one remains. That is fighting. That is truly the sport’s shame.

Fighting in the NHL will probably disappear organically at some point, but why wait? And most men playing pro hockey are not in the NHL. What about them? Don’t tell me eliminating fighting will deprive some players of their dreams of making it to the NHL, because for every player that doesn’t make it, another one will.

Don’t tell me (and in profane words, no less, as many since-blocked Twitter respondents did) that fighting belongs in hockey because it has always been part of hockey. Beanball wars used to be a fairly regular part of major league baseball, and the sport has survived without them.

The spectacle demeans everyone, even is least of all the players who exist in a culture that rewards such activity. The 24-year-old undrafted Cave, by the way, texted the 19-year-old, fourth-rounder Pospisil following the fight to check in on his opponent’s health, a classy maneuver, so do not misunderstand this as a criticism of the athletes. Pospisil, by the way, did not play in his team’s following game that took place six days later. Rather, this is aimed at the essence of what is still a part of the sport’s culture.

Many of the Twitter replies included a reference, one way or another, to manliness, as if manliness in sports is even a thing in this era of the USWNT, the 2019 IIHF Women’s World Championship Gold Medal-winning Team USA, Bianca Andreescu and Simone Biles.

This is not about manliness. It is about evolution. We are nearing the 2020s and fisticuffs are still sanctioned and sold as part of the pro hockey entertainment experience. Enough. Enough, already.

So entering Saturday, the top five teams in the league — Buffalo, Washington, Colorado, Edmonton and Boston — had combined for a 39-8-8 record (.782).

Meanwhile, the bottom five clubs — Ottawa, Detroit, Minnesota, New Jersey and Chicago — had gone an aggregate 12-31-5 (.302).

What happened to parity?

The Devils have enough upper-echelon offensive talent to outscore a number of their deficiencies on the blue line, but no team can overcome the type of sub-par goaltending the team has received from the Cory Schneider-Mackenzie Blackwood combo that has recorded the league’s second-lowest save percentage, both overall and at five-on-five.

I wonder if the Coyotes could be tempted to part with genuine good guy and genuinely outstanding netminder Antti Raanta, who has made it all the way back from the lower body injury that sidelined the Finn nearly all last season and who shined in Arizona’s 5-3 victory in New Jersey on Friday?

Raanta, 30, has another season remaining on his contract worth $4.25 million per. He is the backup to 29-year-old Darcy Kuemper, who at the start of this month signed a two-year extension worth $4.5M that kicks in next year.

Clearly, the front office has selected Kuemper as their goaltender of the (near) future. The question is whether the club is committed to presenting this formidable one-two in nets in an attempt to nail down the franchise’s first playoff spot since 2012, or whether GM John Chayka could be enticed to surrender Raanta.

If so, New Jersey GM Ray Shero might want to do the enticing.

There were some unaccountable omissions among the NHL’s Greatest 100 as unveiled two years ago. Pierre Pilote, for one. Zdeno Chara, for two. Evgeni Malkin, for three.

And Dale Hawerchuk, for four.

Now comes the news that Hawerchuk, the splendid Winnipeg center of the ’80s, has contracted stomach cancer. The extended world of hockey wishes him the very best.