Junior Players Kill Bat During Game

Just two months after Manu Ginobili of the San Antonio Spurs faced the wrath of PETA for disposing of a wayward bat, a couple of USHL players for the Green Bay Gamblers are under a similar spotlight after a bat made its way around the rink on Tuesday night before getting whacked out of the air.

As a warning, some people may find this video disturbing as it does show the bat getting struck with a hockey stick. Multiple times.

You've been warned.

Predictably, the folks at PETA are not pleased:

"This might have been an annoyance but it was also a living being," said Tori Perry, the Emergency Response Manager of Cruelty Investigations for PETA. "If you have an animal that's somewhere he's not supposed to be, you call animal control. It's not just something where you just go, 'Oh , we'll take some hockey sticks to him.'"

But the team says it had health concerns to consider:

"Definitely never seen something like that," said Gamblers goalie Steve Summerhays. "That bat was behind me and I was trying to watch the play. I'd rather see a guy coming at me than a bat cruising behind my neck."
...
"This has obviously turned into Batgate," said coach John Cooper. "But the rabies fear was a big one."

Meanwhile, PETA counters by stating that the incidence of rabies in bats is estimated to be less than 0.5 percent.

This reminds of an encounter I had when I was covering high school basketball in rural southwestern Pennsylvania two years ago. It was a playoff game, and late in the second half a bat found its way into the gym and buzzed the crowd and players. As people ducked for cover and attempted to cover their faces, the school decided to open every door and window in the gym, hoping that the confused beast would find its way back to the great outdoors.

Instead, this futile effort only resulted in another bat entering the gym, doubling the panic and mayhem as coaches, maintenance employees and players attempted to chase them out with brooms, notebooks and open-handed slaps.

One eventually found its way out after 20 minutes, the other did not.