Ladies and gentlemen, pictured above is Paul Devorski, and he is now my favorite referee ever. As a ref, he generally lives his life and plies his trade working in the NHL referee far from spotlight – hey, they can’t all be Ed Hochulis – save for the inebriated, belligerent fan or two who will mock and ridicule him at ever turn any time he makes a call which goes against their team. Such an event allegedly occurred last night in Ohio during the Columbus Blue Jackets-Minnesota Wild tilt. A group of fans in Section 109 of Nationwide Arena, upset over a perceived blown call, began letting Devorski have it. What they claim they received in response was a delightful little serving of snarky comeuppance.

Roughly 15 fans seated in or around the area sent emails or Twitter messages to The Dispatch shortly after the incident. One of them, Ritter Hoy, who was seated in the middle of the fifth row up from the glass, agreed to be interviewed by The Dispatch.

“Two guys in front of us started giving the refs (grief) after they clearly missed a call,” Hoy said. “Happens at every game, right?

“Well, the No. 10 official put his fingers up and rubbed his eyes and made a crying face, like ‘what are you going to do, cry?’ They started giving him more (grief) and he put his middle finger up to his chin and acted like he was scratching his face. It was very, very blatant. The whole section saw it and went crazy.”

[...]

“I have to say the guys who were two rows in front of us were kind of provoking him,” Hoy said. “They were pretty much provoking him. But he has to be used to that kind of stuff, right? He can’t go there, can he? – The Columbus Dispatch (via Puck Daddy)

Oh, go there he did, Mr. Hoy. And God bless him for it. This is exactly the kind of thing that happens all the time when a heckler tries to crack wise during a comedy show. Be prepared for a snarky comeback. Except for at Dane Cook shows. No one showing up for one of those abominations is smart enough to crack wise about anything, let alone Dane Cook coming up with anything snarky to say.

A report coming out of Ohio claims that the Columbus Blue Jackets have lost at least $12 million per year since their inception and that the team could move if the city does not offer “financial relief” in the near future. The Blue Jackets are one of the few teams in all of pro sports to play in an arena that’s entirely privately owned in Nationwide Arena, but one of the more popular “relief” options listed in the report involves Franklin County purchasing either part or all of that arena with tax revenue.

The Blue Jackets’ president, Mike Priest, who supports the chamber’s idea of using public money to help defray the team’s costs, tells reporters, “We’re just trying to educate that this is what a sustainable model looks like.” –NYTimes

Taxpayers in that area voted three times to reject a tax increase that would have created public money for an arena. And it’s worth noting that the gaming referendum that passed earlier this week will put a casino in that same “Arena District.” And those publicly-funded stadiums have done wonders for the Browns, Indians and Reds. But even if the team decides they can’t cut it in Columbus anymore–which will probably happen anyway–WHERE ARE THEY GONNA GO? Kansas City? Great, have fun in the middle of nowhere. Tell Mrs. Parker and Zack Greinke we said hey.

Preseason in the NHL seems like a dangerous place to be; you’ve got guys that are willing to do whatever it takes to get on the roster for the big club. Take Tommy Sestito, a 21-year-old career minor league guy who decides to go right after the big dog, taking on noted Inuit/badass Jordin Tootoo in the first period of a preseason game on Saturday. And as you can see from the video, Tootoo gives Sestito a little bullrush there at the end and the New Yorker cracks his head on the ice. Tootoo has come under fire for his role in the fight.

“It’s not a good sight to see. Something like that is pretty dangerous,” Tootoo said. “Obviously my intention wasn’t to bang his head off the ice. Fortunately, I got a hold of him after the game to see how he was doing and it sounds like he’s on the road to recovery…I just apologized for what happened and told him my intentions weren’t to do what happened there and that was it.” via.

Results for Sestito’s CT scan haven’t been found in the press, but one SI columnist has already cited in the incident for the latest “Fighting Is Bad” column. And I’m not saying it is or it isn’t, but I’d like to see the NHL decide whether they’re going to handle disciplining dangerous play or let the players do it themselves. Fighting does have a place in pro hockey, a function, but it’s a function on which the league needs to stop meandering. Either let the players police their own or do it for them. Only time will tell from which hand Jordin Tootoo will find retribution served. If any.

Look, I don’t care if the clowns in Detroit want to litter their own ice with traditional mollusk fare, but to do it in someone else’s building? You’re taking your life into your own hands. Just ask Greg Goloborodko (not pictured), one of the Columbus-area Red Wings fans that tried to do just that during Game 3 at the Blue Jackets’ Nationwide Arena:

He lobbed a 2 1/2-pound octopus nicknamed “Homer” about 60 feet over the Plexiglas and onto the ice. Yes, Goloborodko names his octopi for Red Wings’ players — the latest in honor of forward Tomas Holmstrom.

Goloborodko said he was detained by arena security, threatened by angry Jackets fans and enjoyed a chance encounter with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman before being escorted from the building.

“I heard Bettman say, ‘I’m not happy about this one bit.’ I don’t know if he was responding to me or talking about something else.”

Goloborodko got off relatively unscathed:

Elsewhere in Nationwide Arena, Blue Jackets fans pounced on a fan in a Red Wings’ No. 91 Sergei Fedorov jersey before he could heave an octopus.

Goloborodko said Jackets fans vented their anger and that arena security was not happy having to defend him.

The tossing of the octopus on the ice has been a Red Wings’ tradition since the 1950s, but that’s where it needs to stay. You don’t see Auburn taking their eagle into Tuscaloosa and you don’t see Bengals players committing felonies outside of the Tristate area. So the next time you’re thinking of bringing an octopus to Ohio, make sure it’s in a dark room with seven of your friends. They may not go for it right away, but that’s where the ether comes in.