For everyone who's been living under a rock the last fifty or so years, ice hockey is a violent sport. Got it? Its two teams of large men wielding long, wooden sticks, skating on ice, and slamming a small rubber disk back and forth until the end of the game. For those unfamiliar with basic physics, and human nature, you put a group of several 200 pound men out on a field of ice wearing metal-bladed boots, and give them all thin wooden clubs, there's going to be some level of uncontrolled carnage.

There's even a four-foot plexi-glass barrier that completely encircles the ice arena where the game is played. That's not a sneeze guard, by the way, but more like protection from flying pucks, frozen rock-hard by the ice, not to mention the occasional knocked-out teeth and blood spatter. Hoorah! Anyone seen what happens when the Scots or Irish get worked up over a poorly-executed soccer match? Yeah. Now give those same players weapons, and tell them they're only to be used for game play.  It'd be like leaving a house in the care of teenagers, and telling them not to throw a huge party.

And if the equipment and playing venue isn't telling enough of hockey's inherent violence, just look up in the stands. You're just as likely to see ice hockey fans beating the crap out of each other as you are the players. Recently, a member of the San Jose Sharks hockey team was suspended for using "excessive violence" against a Phoenix Coyotes player. The details of this incident are a bit sketchy the sportscasters calling the game didn't even catch all of it and the Coyotes player didn't return to the game after the offending blow to his head rendered him unable to play. Well, that just goes to show what kind of a game hockey is. This guy wasn't maimed, and, in the end, the scuffle was really just part of hockey's unique style.

The Sharks player was suspended from four games, and fined $16,344.08 as a punishment for the offense, which seems fair, and both players will return to the game. All's well that ends well. Besides, no one wants to see any kind of sporting event where violence goes on unchecked. Well, hopefully few people do, anyway. But for the occasional pugilistic slap down, you just can't beat a game of ice hockey.