Lone Star Squad Administering ‘Ultimate Penalty’

Dallas, TX -- In an effort to curtail escalating on-ice misconduct, the NHL's Dallas Stars this week instituted the league's first death penalty box.

"We got tired of seeing our best players roughed up by no-talent thugs," explained Stars GM Doug Armstrong, "only to have some candy-ass liberal ref set these guys free five minutes later."

Now, at all Stars home games anyone charged with a major penalty, such as spearing or cross-checking, is assessed a "strike."  Once a player accumulates three strikes, he is immediately escorted to a sterile 6' by 6' ringside box outfitted with a high-back chair and leather straps.  Justice is served.

The idea seems to be a crowd-pleaser.

Penalty minutes have declined 31 percent since the introduction of the death penalty box, and many fans at American Airlines Arena note that action on the ice has become more fluid, with far fewer bare-knuckle brawls.

"It's more of a European game in here now," said Stars season ticket holder Robert Gibson, wearing blue jeans and an Ulf Dahlen jersey.  "By the third period, most of the remaining players are quick little blue-eyed wingers with good stick skills.  Except for the national anthem and the acrid stench of burning flesh, you’d think you were in Finland, not central Texas."

Many of the league's worst offenders have already been terminated, to the delight of the crowd.

"Tie Domi gave us his final power play, alright," chuckled Gibson, referring to the Maple Leafs’ notorious goon, "About 2,000 volts’ worth."

"Everyone's always whining about the violence in hockey," said Stars Chairman Tom Hicks, who dreamed up the idea, “but we’re actually doing something about it.”

A rare exception in league policy, the three strikes rule, explained Hicks, is necessary to combat hockey's high rate of recidivism.

“A lot of these guys were chronic offenders.  They’d serve their time for one offense, like high-sticking, and wind up right back in the box for another. You can either try to rehabilitate people like that—the costs of which would force us to raise ticket prices--or you can eliminate them."

Research into Texas’ arcane criminal punishment laws confirmed that the Stars' private enforcement of a death penalty is, in fact, completely legal. However, not all have embraced the idea.

Outside the arena, protester Nancy Gratz distributed candles and poems dedicated to recently executed players.

"This just isn't fair," she said. "And how come a disproportionate number of those put to death have been Blackhawks?"