Hendersonville, NC – It seems that the occurrence of violence in sports is becoming more common. We have, as fans, long ago grown accustom to going to a hockey game and seeing a fight. Many people only go to hockey game to see a fight. Bench clearing baseball brawls lead off the sports report. As far as this reporter can tell, the only point to rugby is violence itself. With our desensitization to these good old fashion head thumpings, should the outbreak of violence at the National Shuffleboard Finals really come as a shock?

“It’s just such a travesty,” said one elderly shuffleboard player. She did not want to be identified. “We have at least 500 years of shuffleboard history that came before us, and not once in that history has something like this ever happened. Not once.”

The latest in the rash of sports violence headlines began during the final match of nationals, when the east division champion, Lester Marks, reportedly referred to south division champion Victor Leeds, as a “grumpy old codger,” to which Leeds responded with, “That’s it, old man! I gonna whoop your geriatric ass!”

A fifteen minute scuffle ensued, during which both men repeatedly hit each other with shuffleboard cues. Three of the cues and several windows were broken in the exchange. Both men were taken into custody by the Hendersonville Police Department and, at the time of publication, not available for comment. They seem to be the only two people in the United States that have not voiced their opinion on this topic. USA National Shuffleboard Association President Walter Went called the affair “embarrassing.” Comedian June Summers called it “sidesplitting.”

“Come on, folks,” said Summers in her routine at Hendersonville comedy club Laff-Fest’s amateur night. “a fight broke out at a shuffleboard match between two 75 year old men. If that’s not a sign of Armageddon, I don’t know what is.”

While the two want-to-be bruisers cool off in the local jail, National Shuffleboard Association Head of Officials Burt Redding is stumped as to how to proceed. “We have rules,” he said, “that tell us how many points to deduct for players who stall, players who don’t remain seated, even players who engage in “smack talk,” but we don’t have any rules for what to do with players who get into a bar brawl.”

“Frankly,” Redding continues after a long pause, “we never thought we would need them. God, how young and dumb we were back then.”

For now, shuffleboard and everyone that is a part of it has the long and arduous task of cleaning up the fallout from the bomb that exploded over the shuffleboard finals. It is just another in the growing list of violent sports.