Yellowknife (May 20/05) - With a thin line of dried blood stretching from his nose to his upper lip, Alex MacPherson tilted his head skyward so friends could survey the damage.

"He caught me," said the bespectacled grade nine student, standing in the middle of a downtown park. "It was bleeding a bit, but not too badly."

MacPherson was fresh off a wild boxing match against a classmate from Sir John Franklin High School - a contest that was more street fight than sweet science.

The teenager is among a growing number of students who have devoted their lunch hour to a singular goal: whaling away on each other far from the watchful gaze of parents and teachers.

The popularity of these unsupervised bouts has blossomed during the last week. A match last Thursday in a downtown alleyway drew about 20 spectators and combatants. The following day, double that number attended a free-for-all in a nearby park.

The boxing matches resemble something from Fight Club, a Brad Pitt-Edward Norton film about the seamy world of underground brawling.

In this case, the fighters run a gamut of teenaged boys, from scrawny to solid to momma should cut back on the baking.

They wear bright-red boxing gloves and are surrounded by classmates who laugh and holler with every hit and near miss.

The matches are melees of looping haymakers and upper cuts, though members of the student boxing club throw in the occasional jab.

Officiating is non-existent and as one teenaged boy phrased it: "The rules are simple. There are no rules."

"Well there is one rule," another spectator interjected. "No hitting in the balls."

Despite the bravado, there are some well accepted, if not codified, guidelines. Kicking is forbidden. Combatants must stay within a loose circle of screaming classmates. A bout ends when one fighter either quits or begins to bleed (a stipulation lovingly referred to as the "first blood rule"). And, of course, there is no hitting below the belt.

No serious injuries

"Nobody has been hurt seriously," said one boy. "A few snotty or bloody noses, but that's it."

"We're off school grounds, so there is nothing the principal or the teachers can do," said another student.

While consensual fights are not illegal, "they are not that smart either," said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Darcy Fleury.

"Some of these kids probably think they know how to fight," he said. "But the reality could be different. There is the potential for a serious injury."

If the fights continue, police will talk with school officials and parents to make them aware of the situation, Fleury said.

Peter Hurd, a psychology professor at the University of Alberta, said the boxing matches probably represent an escape from everyday life for most of the participants.

"It gives them contact with a reality outside of parental consent," Hurd said from Edmonton.

The reasoning for most students is less clinical. "Why do we do it?" said 15-year-old Andrew Logan: "it's fun."