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Nick Bakay's Tale of the Tape: NHL vs. WWF
By Nick Bakay
Page 2

Now that Tie Domi has lifted his water-bottle squirting to playoff intensity, it raises an interesting question about hockey and its limited, if enthusiastic, fan base:


	Tie Domi

If the NHL wants to raise the profile of hockey, why not sell America on the sheer anarchy of playoff hockey violence -- that special time of the hockey year when teeth spill over the ice like a spilt box of chicklets? Shouldn't the NHL stop apologizing for its physical, agenda-ridden game and embrace the beast?

Think about it -- it's the only marketing pocket left for hockey. The NBA is synonymous with urban, NASCAR owns country, and the NFL and MLB have divvied up the middle class.

I say: Go bad-ass. This is a strange game that most Americans have never played. But we can relate to series of jabs to the nose. Violence sells in the New Millennium. How else do you explain the single greatest marketing miracle of the last 15 years, the WWF? And their fights aren't even real! In fact, the XFL has proved they don't have a good handle on real. But if you want to sell a game where scar tissue and blurred vision are the only way you know you've advanced to the next round, what better flag to fly?

Is it really that simple? Pro hockey, pro wrestling, let's see how they stack up at the Tale of the Tape ...

Nick Bakay's Tale of the Tape: NHL vs. WWF
Category	WWF	NHL	Advantage
Fights	Fake	Real	NHL
Shoulders	Real	Fake	WWF
How to be an All-Star	Have a working tail surgically implanted	Get on the same line as Jagr	WWF
Most dangerous place to be	Guarding the supplement cabinet	In front of the net	Push
Gouge	A way to attack your opponent's eyeball	A way to describe ticket pricing	WWF
Where else can you see ...?	A man spend long periods of time with his head squeezed by another man's buttocks	12 men on the ice, three teeth	Push
Colorful characters	The enigma that is Mankind	The organist who plays the "Dragnet" theme when there's a penalty	WWF
Standard equipment	Quivering, greased man-flanks	More facial scars than the entire Jackson family	WWF
How to tell when a guy has been hit hard	The guy hitting him stomps on the canvas extra-loud.	He don't get up.	NHL
Where the sports were born	At the corner of Sadist and Latent Streets	A pond	NHL
Most exciting moment	A cage match with an electric fence	A penalty shot with a bouncing puck	WWF
Why some of them wear masks	To hide their identity until they can think up a new character	So they can also play goalie in Mexico	Push
World's largest source of	270-pound men with peroxide blonde hair	Male rhinoplasty	NHL
Dullest moments	When the fans trail into the arena, leaving a wake of drool	Icing	NHL
Toys	The Undertaker action figure puts a toe tag on dispatched victims.	The Stu Grimson action figure (brass knuckles and Bible optional) actually gives pummeled Swedes last rights.	WWF
Franchises that have yet to take off	Stone Cold Steve Austin's world of unfinished Pine furniture	Jaromir Jagr's House of late '70s Hair	NHL, a props to mullets everywhere
Stage names	Rowdy Roddy Piper	Miroslav Satan	NHL. There. I did it. Now are you satisfied, oh, Dark One?
Face off	A result	A start	NHL
Movies that did nothing for the sport	Hulk Hogan is "Mr. Nanny!"	"Mystery, Alaska" is whimsical!	WWF
The lucky ones retire, then become ...	Bouncers	Analysts on the radio broadcast	Push
The ref looks the other way	When a wrestler sneaks a foreign object in the ring	When Brett Hull scores the final goal of the season	WWF, and don't let them tell you I keep hammering this home because I'm from Buffalo. Can you put a qualifier on justice?

So there you have it. In a triple suplex during four-on-four OT, the advantage goes ... to the WWF. But if the NHL was taking notes, this country will have a Zamboni in every garage. Until next time, I'm Nick Bakay reminding you the numbers never lie.

Humorist Nick Bakay, currently a writer for the CBS sitcom "King of Queens," is a regular contributor to ESPN The Magazine and Page 2. He has a Web site at http://nickbakay.com.