Thursday, December 4, 2008

The Sean Avery Saga

I've written a piece on the Sean Avery drama that'll be coming out soon at The Love of Sports, but I just wanted to bring it here too since this is where we've discussed pretty much everything that has crossed my mind in the last year and change.

For me, it shakes down like this:

What Avery said was sophomoric and crude and classless.
He's a jackass and probably yapped his way out of playing in the NHL this season.
But was it worthy of a suspension and all the uproar and attention it's gotten in the media?

In a word: No.

Access fucking Hollywood was waiting for Avery outside the NHL Offices in New York today, where he met with Commissioner Gary Bettman. While I'm sure this isn't the attention Bettman necessarily wants for the NHL, tell me the last time anything related to hockey was on Access Hollywood?

And for all those people who are climbing up on their soapboxes saying how disgusted they are with Avery's choice of words and the message it sends and blah blah blah blah blah, please tell me how this is even remotely as bad as Plaxico Burress toting a loaded weapon in a nightclub?

Bottom line: I can't wait to see what the NHL does here because if they suspend him for any length of time, they're showing they're more worried about PR than players and I'll have me a field day with that.

Random Note - I sure did use a lot of colons in this piece... weird...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hockey players are hot heads and always have been but I think he crossed the line as this was a totally calculated, incredibly inappropriate thing to say to the media. A lot gets said on the ice and I think that is fine but lets keep it on the ice. The NHL is a form of entertainment. It's as simple as that. If the majority of watchers are disgusted by what Avery said then the NHL is failing at its job. It is absolutely Gary Bettmans responsibility to take care of whatever it is that is standing in the way of people being entertained by the game of Hockey.