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KRAKOW, POLAND—Pope John Paul II spent several
days in his boyhood hometown outside Krakow, where he spoke
with old friends and neighbors, led Sunday Mass in the Cathedral
where he was baptized and delivered a furious beating to his
old mentor and hockey coach, Chip Dinsky.
"It was an amazing spectacle to witness," said
an anonymous spokesman for the Vatican, who just days earlier
was worried that the Pope's fragile health might require early
retirement. "I would say it was a smackdown, pure and
simple."
Coach Dinsky, 92, who ran Krakow's Mother of Charity intramural
hockey league during the the war years was renown for teasing
the Pontiff and humiliating him in front of the other children.
According to former teammate Piet-Paul Savovitch, the Pope,
known simply as "JP" back then, was really small
for his age and took a lot of abuse in the lockerroom.
"JP was skinny and weak and super religious and that
just didn't jibe with Coach Dinsky," Savovitch said.
"Plus he developed late and was hung like a squirrel
which the Coach never hesitated to point out every time an
opponent scored on him."
Though the Vatican doesn't normally condone violence, a statement
released after the incident referenced the Biblical "eye
for an eye" passage in the Scriptures. Off the record,
several Vatican aides admitted the Pope had been planning
payback for years and was simply "taking care of business."
A few months ago, the Pope hired a personal trainer and
did a little kickboxing, explained a Vatican administrator
who thought at the time the Pope was just trying get in shape
for the summer. "But then, when he realized he'd be traveling
to Poland, all of the sudden Jackie Chan shows up for dinner
and teaches him a bunch of neat Jap tricks -I guess just in
case."
Witnesses at the scene described it as an "old fashioned
ass-whooping" but said that Coach Pinsky put up a good
fight up until the very end, when the Pope beat him senseless
with a metal folding chair in the center of the old skating
rink.
"I'm just glad the Pope had mercy and took off his ice
skates. That would have been really ugly."
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