Punching Up Hockey

Can Beef promote or what?

Hopefully none of the formers will end up as the late. "Man, I'd feel like s—-," says Beef. What more insurance could you want?

Hockey Gladiators is selling like Siberian space heaters. There are already plans for a sequel, perhaps in Philadelphia or Detroit, next spring. "If there's a lockout on Sept. 15," Beef says, "I'll be calling NHL players on Sept. 16, asking them if they want to be in it." The San Jose Sharks' Scott Parker has already said he'd be interested. Hey, you want him taking his pent-up red-ass out on you?

The NHL, the hockey press, and even gerbil brains like Leafs bouncer Tie Domi are calling the event "an insult" and "a travesty" and say it's pandering to the worst possible element in the sport—which, of course, it is. Hell, even pro wrestlers look at this thing and go, Dude, that's barbaric.

Is this what hockey gets for all the years of having refs stand and watch two guys turn each other's brains into tapioca, suiting up assassins who couldn't slap a puck into Lake Michigan and raising fans on the red milk of violence?

Well, yeah, but it's tradition.