There are a few types of stories I try not to miss — baseball players in drag, pets who have miraculously found their way home after natural disasters — but the best story of all is the one where a Philadelphia sports fan is acting like a butthole and gets hit or shocked or shot with something.

Via Puck Daddy:

During the first round of the 2011 Eastern Conference Playoffs, a Philadelphia Flyers fan taunted the Buffalo Sabres during warm-ups before a game at Wells Fargo Center, and the Sabres responded by plunking a few pucks off the glass at this pest.

Eventually, it was time for 6-foot-7 defenseman Tyler Myers to offer his rejoinder — with smashing results.

I don’t want to piss off the “no fan deserves this” or “there were kids sitting nearby who could’ve gotten hurt” crowds, but I feel it’s my obligation as a guy who has calmly loved and followed sports his entire life to find some level of schadenfreude in the unfortunate events that befall the people who won’t shut up during them. And also Flyers fans.

I guess the Sabers and Senators have some kind of intense rivalry, because even as physical as hockey is, you usually don’t see one player bite another, as Jarkko Ruutu — if that is his real name — did to Andrew Peters’s hand last night. From Sabres Edge:

Peters, one of the most gregarious Sabres, had the media in stitches by telling us it was his “texting thumb” that took the bite. “I’m cut pretty good,” he said. “I won’t be able to text message anyone. Now I actually have to talk to people which is kind of a bummer because I hate talking on the phone.”

Man, he’s got a point there. I f’n HATE talking on the phone.  And talking to people in person.  And any kind of instant messaging. And other people in general. I bet if I didn’t dislike everyone on the planet so much, Peters and I might get along.

Yeah… I wasn’t really cut out for working in an office. People get touchy about getting glared at with burning hatred. “What, why am I fired? I didn’t even tell you how much I hated you.”

The Islanders gave the Sabres 11 power plays during Buffalo’s 7-1 rout last night, and it’s pretty hard to imagine how that happened.  Having all your players punch people isn’t illegal, is it?  Or perhaps getting body-slammed to the ice is against the rules.  I think that should be worth at least half point.

Jason Pominville and Ales Kotalik [Ed. note: Hee hee! "Alice"!] led the Sabres with a goal and two assists apiece, but most of the credit should go to New York for playing like complete shit last night.  They looked worse than Long Island prom photos.

(thanks, 289)

On Saturday night, the Bruins' Jeremy Reich did his very best to break the neck of the Sabres' Mike Weber.  The hit itself wasn't really malicious, but it did send Weber headfirst into the boards for what looks like an ugly introduction to paraplegia. 

Amazingly, Weber was able to get up and even returned to the game later on.  Which just goes to show what I've said all along: Jeremy Reich can't paralyze his way out of a brown paper bag.

[Fan IQ] 

Florida Panthers winger Richard Zednik is in stable condition today after teammate Olli Jokinen, upended on the ice, inadvertently sliced open Zednik's neck during the third period of last night's 5-3 loss in Buffalo against the Sabres.  The injury is so gruesome and bloody that it calls to mind Clint Malarchuk's similar injury on the Buffalo ice almost 20 years ago, and so horrific that I've watched the video of it about eight times this morning.  

Jokinen fell headfirst to the ice, and his right leg flew up and struck Zednik directly on the side of the neck. Clutching his neck, Zednik somehow had the capacity to race the three-quarters length of the ice to the Panthers bench, where he nearly fell into the arms of trainer Dave Zenobi, who immediately placed a towel on the player's throat [see thumbnailed picture]…

Play resumed after a 15-minute delay, during which time crews scraped the blood off the ice and the surface was cleaned by Zambonis.

Videos of the accident keep getting taken down by the NHL fun police, but of course the NHL is too incompetent to have a decent video player on its own site, so I'll let you peruse a YouTube search of "Zednik neck" at your leisure.  I have to warn you: you probably shouldn't watch the video if you're a pussy.  The amount of blood that hits the ice before Zednik even finishes falling is kind of amazing.  It's like Tarantino directed a Mighty Ducks movie.

There's not a whole lot I can say about yesterday's Winter Classic between the Penguins and Sabres that isn't better said somewhere else, so I'll just tip my hat to the NHL for for its pretty awesome marketing ploy, to the Pens and Sabes for playing a hell of a game, to Sidney Crosby for being better at hockey than anyone else alive, and to the city of Buffalo for being a crappy place to live in the winter, because all that snow looks great on TV.

If you need to get caught up to speed, check out FanHaus's live blog, which is pretty solid except for this:

And as the NHL Network crew suggested, if the NFL can make Thanksgiving Day synonymous with football, there's no reason the NHL can't find a niche of its own on New Year's Day.

Actually, I kinda think college football beat hockey to the punch for New Year's Day.  President's Day is still open, though.

[Also see: Going Five Hole, The Ice Sheet]

Photo: Getty Images