Fan Beats Player With His Own Stick

As if Russia's Olympic showing wasn't enough, the KHL looks even more bush league after a playoff game was interrupted by a spectator attacking the visiting team.

It's like Mike Milbury by way of Yakov Smirnoff. In America, player beats fan with own shoe. In Russia, a drunken fan jumped onto the bench and pummeled a backup goalie with his own stick. Here's the aftermath:

This actually went down on Sunday, but it's taken a few days for Pravda's typewriter monkeys to translate it into English (it reads like they're still not fully done).

A fan of Avtomobilist broke in the guests' bench and punched the goalkeeper, Vitaly Kolesnik, in the head. The next moment the man grabbed a hockey stick and swung it on the goalkeeper's head three times. The goalie received a lacerated wound in the attack and was emergently hospitalized to a hospital with a significant blood loss. He was later diagnosed with a brain concussion.

But, this is still hockey, and the game still had to be played.

It looked like that mad guy kept hitting our player with a baseball bat," said Ufa coach Igor Zakharkin. "The blood was all over the place. We're still in shock. No wonder we lost."

Not a day later, the teams met again, with heavy security in place. Ufa won the game and the series, and Gary Bettman is wondering why the fan was ejected.

Drunk Fan Smashes Goalkeeper's Head with Hockey Stick [Pravda]