Thursday, March 29, 2007

Jerking Hoff



An orgy of alpha male journalism battered Minneapolis on Wednesday as Kevin Hoffman, the new editor of the City Pages, unleashed extremely powerful feature writing in a cover story about a pro hockey goon. This was The Hoff's first cover since arriving in town and it was filled with all the big dick charisma we've come to expect from the rugby cut Cleveland tough. Battle-scarred knuckles. Broken jaws. English as a second language. This story had it all. But even The Hoff knows that one manly feature does not a lesbian marriage pioneer conceal, so he also sprayed his byline all over the paper's website. His name appears no fewer than four times on his new bitch, all in connection with the same story. This super-max "online package" includes transcripts from The Hoff's goon interviews and a photo homage to his totally platonic new man crush, Derek Boogaard. It's almost too icy to bear.

And now for some data....

Total grafs busted: 119
Number of times Boogaard is called "The Boogeyman": 84
Number of appearances of the word fight (or variation): 39
Awkward or cliched similes: 9*
References to gorillas: 2
References to Yetis: 1
Number of times Boogaard is compared to a GQ model: 1
References to Boogaards "extra girth": 1
Description of hands like concrete blocks always thrown with bad intentions: 1
Examples of measured writing: 0

The Hoff's Bust-A-Graf Counter (total grafs busted by Kevin Hoffman during his tenure at City Pages):



* "The Boogeyman is tenderizing King like a cheap piece of meat."
"The Boogeyman streaks at his target like a heat-seeking missile."
"he almost looks like a model out of GQ."
"He was tired of being treated like a circus sideshow,"
"The Boogeyman ... continues his trajectory like a passenger ejected through the windshield."
"he was embraced like a long-lost relative."
"After one fight, his opponent ripped the name off Boogaard's jersey and tossed it to the crowd, like a matador circling the ring with an ear at a bullfight."
"the Boogeyman's skates were chewed up like a dog's toy."
"Gillies collapses like a marionette with its strings cut."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What you don't know is that Hoffman is big fan of Guitar Hero, and started the videogame columns that are now run by several VVM papers. Of course, he takes kar-ate, so you know he's not a pussy.

Anonymous said...

obvi written by hoff, first comment

Anonymous said...

Didja see that the Hoff's two posts on his paper's sports blog is about his Boogieman?