Kansas City Islanders

They should stop serving alcohol in venues where the team hasn't won 20 games by the All-Star break.

Being a Devils fan from Long Island, I was more than inclined to go the see them play at the Coliseum last weekend. It was a short drive, and I wanted to see my Jersey boys get some confidence going into the home stretch of the season.

About midway through the 2nd period, the Devils were already down 2-0, and I was growing tired of hearing the 1 die-hard Islander fan in section 229 shout "LETS GO ISLANDERS" more often than Danis was making saves. My attention was drawn to the row behind me, about 4 seats to my right, where a group of 5 kids sat making asinine comments. There was one Devils fan, saving face for the group. I noticed there was an exchange of words between him and a man sitting 2 rows in front of me, maybe 2 seats to my right.

"You want me to come up there?" The man yelled up 3 rows to the pre-pubescent Devils fan.
"You can't do anything." "You don't think I'm gonna do anything??" "You can't do anything."

Let's face it: the kid was right. The guy can't do anything to a kid. Or so we thought.

The man jumped out of his seat and climbed over the 3 empty rows (we were at an Islanders game, after all) that separated them, now standing in my row within arms reach of me.

"You don't think I'm gonna do anything??" He yelled once more, this time inches from the child's petrified face. Scared as he may have been, the kid held his ground.

"No." After being doubted one time too many, the man did something. He spat into the kids face. A nasty, beer-filled loogey. The young boy flinched, and looked like he might cry. Instead, he returned the favor and sent a loogey right into the angered Islanders fan's face.

The man didn't like that. He swung and struck the kid. I moved to get up, but paused momentarily to see if this was for real. It was. He lifted the kid out of his seat and threw him on the ground in my row, his head was about a foot in front of me. Then there was a series of events that resembled Semin on top of Staal, minus the open hands and plus the fists of Cam Janssen and the size difference between Chara and St. Louis.

Not because he was wearing a Parise jersey, but because I'm a good person, I rushed to try to remove the grown man pummeling a small child. I tried to pull the boy out and push the man off at the same time, and I caught a punch right where my helmet should have been. Without thinking, I punched the guy in the side of the head and grabbed the kid by the armpits in an effort to yank him to safety. After only a few inches of progress, a security guard lifted me and placed me aside where he took care of the rest, taking people away.

The man hopefully is in jail for at least the night. The boy, however, being the true Devils fan that he is, made it back in time for the 3rd period.

As if the Islanders don't have enough to be ashamed about this year already...

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