Whenever egos, clashing styles and regional loyalties play a key role in a medium, it's natural for there to be some conflict. Greed and fame (or worse, pride) can turn people who would normally be buddies into lethal enemies.

Obviously, one of the great modern examples is the West Coast/East Coast rivalry, which culminated in the deaths of two famous rappers with Tyler Myers-sized egos.

While hockey bloggers and rappers share little beyond an interest in words (and booties, perhaps), the hockey blogosphere is responsible for some pretty entertaining skirmishes. Even if some of them are probably more like nerdy slap-fights.

Let's take a look at some of the young medium's most memorable feuds ... it's up to your own judgment whether these battles were closer to Tupac/Biggie (legitimate hatred and bloodshed) or Jay-Z/Nas (probable hatred with more than a dash of commercial opportunism).

Jump!

IwoCPO/"The Chief"/Abel 2 Yzerman versus Buddha from Hockey Wilderness

This battle played out this very week and is actually the inspiration for this dopey little post.

All indications are that the jousting began with this post by Buddha, which railed against IwoCPO's style. It's a lengthy piece, but here are a few excerpts:

"IwoCPO, is truly the most homerific of all homerific bloggers I have ever read. Is there anything wrong with that? Nah, as long as the reader understands that and takes every word written there with that information in hand."

Critical, but not too nasty. However, things get a little more heated toward the end of Buddha's diatribe.

"It is also "writers" like these that lead to hatred of the Red Wings and their fan base. Whether it's fair or not to lump all Detroit fans in with IwoCPO, he (she?) is one of the more vocal folks, and attitudes or viewpoints like his aren't exactly conducive to planting seeds of goodwill. Not that he (she?) and every other Red Wings fan really care what other fan bases think of them, but they sure seem to complain a lot about it. Don't they?

Thank you IwoCPO, and From Abel to Yzerman for ensuring that NHL teams always have plenty of ammunition to use when denying credentials to bloggers who actually have some professionalism. We appreciate it."

Wow. From all indications, this was an unprovoked critique (or attack, if you prefer stronger words). Yet, it's not outrageous to ponder that A2Y is - by its nature - provocative. But ... dear lord, when you enter that kitchen you better prepare for heat.

Boiling, flames-of-hell heat.

The photo that spawned a minor Twitter meme and some rather mean comments ...

Here's one of the most notable paragraphs from what was an undeniably entertaining retort by IwoCPO (even if, at times, it felt a bit like rubbernecking while driving through a horrific car accident).

"I don’t give a flying foxtrot if you or any other hockey blogger anywhere has access to jack squat.  Just like I don’t care if the Wild have any games on Versus (do they?) or if team ownership in Minnesota, despite one of the best fan bases in all of pro sports, refuses to spend money on the product. I literally don’t care.  Access wouldn’t make my stuff more appealing to the 19 people who read it. And, therefore, I don’t care about it.  I don’t want it. And frankly, I frigging laugh at the ass-hurt nimrods, whining little bitches, pathetic piss-ant, wannabee journalists who get off on thumbing through a sticky-paged thesaurus, doing their pseudo-pretend sports reporter game recaps on their commodore 64’s while the fantastic beat of Gloria Estefan pounds in the background really frigging loud but don’t worry about waking up the girlfriend or the wife because with that hat? Yeah, not an issue."

Say what you want, it's not every day that someone uses the phrase "flying foxtrot."

While IwoCPO's fans unleashed their fury on Hockey Wilderness and began Twitter memes, Buddha didn't exactly live up to his placid moniker. He even, at one point, decided to belittle the city of Detroit's economic turmoil.

"Again, never said I was unhappy with your readers, nor your fans. I did say they are conspiracy theorists, but your readers seem to be proud of that. It likely comes from all of those years working at the Ford plant. Oh wait, that closed? Sad. Maybe the GM plant, then. That closed too? Oh. Well maybe it is from the fumes of dead bodies laying around in parking ramps for weeks at a time.

Dammit. See, I got drawn onto the low road again. I apologize to all of the laid off auto workers who are reading this. I'm sure the jobs will come back eventually. Perhaps you could move to Tennessee and work for Nissan, Toyota, Honda, or Hyundai and then you could cheer for a the Predators and be done with the association to A2Y."

Whether or not these two blogs saw a nice bump in hits and all of the other benefits that come from increased traffic, it looked like there was at least a bit of genuine vitriol. It's clearly too early to pick a "winner" of this fight (and, in fact, one could argue that they're both winners ... or that they both lost). If nothing else, though, it certainly made Hump Day more interesting.

Greg Wyshynski vs. "Eklund"

I cannot say that I'm a leading expert on Eklund and Hockey Buzz. Instead of scouring the Internet for table scraps during the lockout, the majority of my time was spent groping my way through college (and pathetically trying to grope a woman or two). So there's plenty of people who could tell you much more about the rumor monger.

It's just as easy to make the title "Most of the hockey blogosphere vs. Eklund" as it's not exactly as if Wyshynski is the only person whose efforts "outed" the rumor monger. Few did it on such a large scale, though, and it's possible that Wyshynski simply landed the biggest blow on Eklund (while also working in some great lines such as "Eklund's reputation has taken more hits than Eric Lindros's cerebellum").

The venerable Paul Kukla of Kuklas Korner (perhaps the one hockey blog that can compete with Puck Daddy as the elite all-day hockey site) also was quite outspoken against Eklund's often reckless rumor mill.

Whichever way you slice it, that Fanhouse piece was a ballsy call-out to the notorious founder of Hockey Buzz. That being said, Wyshynski and Eklund seem to be doing well for themselves since then. Any hockey fan interested in the blogosphere is fully aware of Puck Daddy and Hockey Buzz.

Yet, when it comes to credibility, Eklund might as well be Tupac.

James Mirtle vs. BD Gallof

It almost seems inevitable: if you get popular enough - especially based on Internet writing - you will end up in a fight or two. In this case,the highly respected James Mirtle (he's now a Toronto Maple Leafs beat writer for the Globe and Mail) power-bombed NY Islanders blogger BD Gallof after realizing Gallof was guilty of committing nefarious deeds as "NHL Masked Avenger."

Using SBN's technology, Mirtle was able to tell that Gallof was posting under the pseudonym. Gallof's side blogs featured some rather harsh criticisms of some big names including Bob McKenzie and respected blogger Eric McErlain. Gallof eventually apologized for those actions and went on a brief hiatus.

It's nice to see that Gallof rebounded from the embarrassment though, founding an upstart site called The Hockey Independent. As someone guilty of past bouts of idiocy and hijinks, it's nice to see a talented writer such as Gallof get a second chance.

That being said, you've been warned, Internet. Don't fuck with Mirtle.