The Sabres keep making headlines, and for all the wrong reasons. They can't win a game, they are going to trade anyone decent for peanuts, and they now have more suspensions than wins. Woof!

Like a soldier returning home from war, the fight may be over for retired NHL enforcers, but adjusting to a normal life isn't easy.

The Last Gladiators, a documentary by Oscar-winner Alex Gibney, focuses on Chris "Knuckles" Nilan, one of the most popular, and most feared enforcers of the 1980s.

Over his 13-year career spent in Montreal, New York, and Boston, Nilan accumulated 3,043 penalty minutes, 110 goals, one Stanley Cup, and a lifetime's worth of scars, thanks in large part to 251 on-ice fights.

"In some respects, I wish he never played hockey," his father Henry is filmed saying through tears.

"You're fucking irrelevant out here."

When historians look back on the slow, plodding demise of the hockey goon, they will reference those words as the opening salvo.

According to Mike Rupp, captured on HBO cameras in the fantastic 24/7, Jody Shelley was irrelevant.

"If you had any outcome on the game I'd fuckin' go with you, but you don't!"

But he wasn't just irrelevant in that particular game. He was irrelevant within the entire game of hockey.

And with a single sentence, Rupp removed any remaining shred of legitimacy clinging to Shelley's career, and the careers of all other players who make their living solely using their fists, perhaps even his own.

This was the hardest post I’ve ever written. I can barely comprehend what happened, so how can I write about it? I can’t write anything that comes close to explaining what happened, and, ultimately, no words can. Instead, I wrote about my memories of Wade and what this all means for the NHL, from that point the words just started to come out. It is my humble submission and my inadequate attempt to answer one question: why?