Man, the UHL just can't buy a break.

Those three letters were in the news again last week when Chad Wagner of the Danbury Trashers was banned for life, after attacking Adirondack Frostbite coach Marc Potvin. Wagner was being escorted to the penalty box at the time, when he shrugged off the referees and lunged over the bench at the opposing coach. Three other players, as well as the Danbury coach, have been suspended. Earlier in the year, the team's owner was also charged by police after punching a linesman after a game.

Before this season, I'd never even heard of the United Hockey League, and I'm sure that many other hockey fans were in the same boat. They didn't start making major headlines until NHLers began migrating in that direction, and now you hear something negative about that league at least once a week, it seems. The UHL's top brass must be wondering at this point whether a few big names were even worth the bother.

All this negative press is making the organization into something of an anathema in hockey circles. The game itself has taken such a beating in the North American market over the past year, starting with the whole Bertuzzi incident and culminating with the lockout; the last thing needed right now is a league that generates nothing but bad publicity, where people only pay attention long enough to cluck their tongues and shake their heads. Although not such a big deal here in Canada, it's terrible for the NHL's business in the United States, where attempts to sell hockey in non-traditional markets are going less-than-swimmingly. American interest is supposed to skyrocket in a few years when the first generation of southern expansion-inspired players arrives at the Entry Draft, but how many of those players are we going to see when American parents forbid their children to play a sport that is seen as vicious and dangerous?