Laid-back? Hey, we’ll lay you out

Well, this week, we softy West Coasters showed ‘em.

The rest of the country thinks all we do is sit on the beach, sipping drinks and working on our tan.

Laid-back, they call it.

Was Kobe’s elbow to the chest of Ron Artest on Wednesday night laid-back?

How about Derek Fisher’s cheap-shot, kamikaze takedown of Luis Scola? Put that in your pipe and smoke it back in Houston.

Our Ducks were ready for more against those Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night at the Honda Center. Tuesday night, one of the Detroit guys, Tomas Holmstrom, skated past a bent-over James Wisniewski, who had just taken a puck to the lung, and unloaded an elbow to his head. Just for good measure, apparently.

Well, our Ducks kicked some butt the rest of the way, won the game and were still fighting the Red Wings after the game ended. Gloves and sticks littered the ice as fans filtered out.

Then, about five minutes into Thursday night’s game, Bobby Ryan found Detroit’s Marian Hossa lingering behind the Ducks’ net and lit him up. Hossa spent some time flat on his back and the Ducks’ Chris Pronger got a penalty. Go figure. That’s hockey.

All this makes us beach bums in the land of fruits and nuts proud. We get it.

Sports is no longer about flow or finesse. It’s about flex. Show ‘em your biceps and then use ‘em. Our macho guys are more macho than yours. Thank heavens we don’t have to watch wimps like Bob Cousy and Wayne Gretzky anymore.

This is the prickly time of the year in sports. Playoffs, baby. Nothing else matters but winning. The announcers talk about games “getting chippy,” and “time to get physical” is just another way of saying it’s the playoffs. Teams don’t just play. They “send a message.”

Sports can’t just be competition, anymore. None of this may-the-best-team-win stuff. Forget shake-hands-when-it’s-over. It needs to be nasty and noisy -- kind of like sports talk radio -- before the fans will buy it.

Some places want athletes. We want gladiators. This isn’t a game. This is the Lions and the Christians. We’ve got a rallying cry: Bigger, Badder, Dirtier.

And guess what else? We can now cheat with the best, too. Sports used to be about talent. Now, it’s about testosterone. And Thursday, we found out our Manny was being Manny around the pharmacy.

No way are we going to let guys like A-Rod dominate the headlines. Heck, our drugstores have ocean views. Take that, Big Apple.

In the land of plastic surgery, we can now claim plastic players. Manny comes to Beverly Hills and finds enhancement. Perfect.

Even our coaches are tough guys.

After Tuesday night’s game, the Ducks’ Randy Carlyle simmered as he answered a question about Holmstrom’s elbow to Wisniewski. You could tell our guys weren’t going to forget that one.

After the Lakers’ 12-round sucker punch of the Rockets on Wednesday night, Phil Jackson went right to the topic at hand.

“Tonight set the tone,” he said.

Darn right. Out here in the surf and sand, we do more than just let Olivia Newton-John sing “Let’s Get Physical.”

With 5:45 left in the second period of Thursday night’s Ducks game, the big screen in the scoreboard used an entire timeout to show the best hockey collisions. Wham! Bang! Men crashing head-first into boards, the perpetrator standing over the victim with a poised stick.

Since the world now exists for moments such as these so they can put them on “SportsCenter,” we want our share of the action, and this week proves that we can do it. Next up: Manny and Kobe, high-sticking a nun.

No disappointment Thursday night at the hockey rink, either. Oh, sure, our Ducks lost Game 4, 6-3, to the Red Wings, who appear to be a better team. No matter.

With the Red Wings leading, 5-3, and just over 11 minutes left to play, Anaheim’s Francois Beauchemin and Detroit’s Tomas Kopecky dropped their gloves, circled each other for a few seconds and went at it. We are proud to report that Beauchemin quickly got on top and sent a left hook to Kopecky’s face that would have made Manny Pacquiao proud.

Then they both sat down in the penalty box while “SportsCenter” cameramen excitedly called the office.

We can keep this going. The Lakers play tonight at Houston, and all we need to do is establish who is boss, right from the opening punch-out.

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bill.dwyre@latimes.com.