The Two-Line Pass

I am trying to compile a list of things that the NHL has deemed less-bad than Sean Avery’s words. If you can find videos of other suspension-worthy clips, send them along. Six games for words. Unbelievable.

He’d have been better off calling Phaneuf the N word.

Other notable NHL suspensions, all with video, after the jump. Be sure to drop some I may have missed in the comments.

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Because the entire world can’t stop talking about Sean Avery’s “sloppy seconds” comment (I have friends who haven’t seen a hockey game in their lives texting me about it), the story goes on and on and on. But at least one guy in the hockey world is sick of it.

Darryl Sutter was asked about it at a press conference and provided the most pointed criticism of anyone. Except Sutter directed it at the media.

“You know what? Put it to bed. You guys cover hockey. It’s supposed to be the sports page. If you guys want to cover that stuff, go ahead. It’s been pretty disgusting for three days, actually. The Dallas Stars come to town . . . two of the best spokesmen in the league, other than a couple of our guys, are Mike Modano and Marty Turco, and I didn’t see their picture or hear a story about them.

“So you guys aren’t really covering hockey.”

Attaboy, Darryl. The whole thing is, and has been, silly from the get-go, and while Avery clearly planned this whole thing, the media certainly did its part to drum up interest ahead of the Dallas/Calgary game two nights ago. While it’s impossible to say if Avery would have made the comment had the media not been working so hard to talk to him about the “Jarome Iginla is boring” thing (and I’d say he probably would’ve because, hey, he’s Sean Avery), it certainly can’t have helped him to avoid the desire to turn the game into another sideshow act.

Andre Roy, who called Avery a “dum-dum,” also had a suggestion for how the media should deal with Avery in the future:

“But maybe you can stop talking (to Avery), even if he gets a hat trick. Just leave him in the corner and don’t even mention him. That would be the right thing to do with this guy because he definitely needs attention. That’s what he’s looking for.’”

But then Scott Cruickshank, who’s usually a pretty damn good writer, went waaaaaaaaaaay off the reservation.

Is his conduct as bad as drilling someone head-first into the boards? …Or is it worse?

Actual question being posed: Is calling someone a name “as bad as” or “worse” than potentially putting someone’s life in jeopardy? Hmmm that IS a noodle-scratcher. I mean, on the one hand words HURT! On the other hand, so does a crushed vertebrae. Unfortunately, science has yet to quantify which injury is more severe and damaging in the long-term.

Think of it this way. Todd Bertuzzi almost crippled someone for life and might end up serving fewer games than Sean Avery, who said a mean thing about an ex-girlfriend.

Yeah, that makes tons of sense.

The Lead

If Sean Avery really wants to help his team, he could get suspended before every game.

Despite Calgary having a large advantage in time of possession, shots and bulletin board material, the Stars improbably cobbled together their second consecutive win for the first time all year and handed Calgary just its fourth loss at home, 3-1.

In the first period especially, Calgary controlled much of the game’s tempo and flow, and Mike Cammalleri was making phenomenal passes every shift. But Flames forwards seemingly had no interest in putting their stick on the ice while in the slot and all the heroics went for nought. Shots after one period read 9-5 for Calgary, but it could’ve easily been 15 had the Flames not been so careless. Consequently, the 1-0 scoreline for Dallas, courtesy of a goal from Toby Petersen of all people, was more than a little frustrating.

The Flames did, however, capitalize on the only power play Dallas gave them all night, with David Moss scoring one second after Stephane Robidas finished serving a penalty (he hadn’t even gotten both feet out of the box yet) to level the game at 1:44 of the second period.

Marty Turco eventually turned aside 27 more shots over the final two periods, many from in close but none particularly threatening, and finished the night stopping 36 of 37. Fabian Brunnstrom’s goal at 7:53 of the second proved the eventual game-winner. Loui Eriksson added an empty netter.

Here’s why this was SUCH an impressive performance from the Stars: with the Sean Avery suspension, Dallas had just enough bodies to dress 18 skaters, 11 forwards and seven defensemen. That the Stars outworked the Flames in such a situation was a small miracle, that they won was a big one. They took one penalty all game, and while it cost them, it’s pretty impressive considering they came in averaging 17.6 penalty minutes per game, sixth most in the league.

The goals came from Petersen, who had just one coming into the game, and Brunnstrom, who had played just 1:16 in the Stars’ previous game. Dave Tippet has to be happy with the way the team responded to such adversity. The Suspension, injuries, a season of poor play and worse special teams numbers could have had the Stars hanging their heads and ready to get steamrolled. But they ground out an unlikely win at Calgary, and that has to feel great.

Now then, a word on the real headline from the Calgary/Dallas game: Sean Avery and the “sloppy seconds” comment.

Who cares?

Okay that was two words, but it’s pretty hard to condense it from there. Perhaps “So?” would have worked. Here’s why it’s ludicrous. Avery is suspended INDEFINITELY for a comment to the press, while Chris Pronger is free to elbow and stomp on whomever he likes with, y’know, general impunity. Sometimes he doesn’t even get suspended for it.

It reminds me of an old Avery interview I read from Player Magazine, wherein Avery is asked what is off limits in his voluminous trashtalking.

PLAYER: A lot of that is trash talking?

SA: Yeah. I guess I know how to hit certain guys’ sore spots.

PLAYER: Are there any rules to that?

SA: Kids are pretty much the only thing that’s off limits for me. Everything else is fair game. Especially wives and girlfriends.

So do you think this is something Avery hasn’t brought up to Dion Phaneuf before, or Mike Komisarek, or Jarret Stoll? You don’t think Avery hasn’t mentioned to each of them, in passing, that he has, in fact, slept with their puckbunny girlfriends? It’s never come up? Please. And I bet they can take it. EVERYONE takes EVERYTHING Avery says with a grain of salt. It’s been that way forever. Why care now?

This is such a ridiculous reputation call that has been snowballing for months, between criticizing individual members of the media, basically calling Bettman an idiot (rightly so, in some cases), flipping off cameras and generally being kind of a dick — all as per his job title, by the way — has finally caught up to him in the league’s eyes. Plus, there’s no precedent for this, so the “throw the book at him!” attitude seems a bit of an overreaction.

Avery’s suspended indefinitely. Meanwhile, Ryan Hollweg played for the Leafs tonight. Who’s worse for the league?

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A lot is being made of tonight’s Dallas/Calgary game because it will be the first time the two teams face eachother since Sean Avery called Jarome Iginla boring.

TSN, obviously, has been banging the drum on this for a few days now. What everyone, from Flames fans to the mainstream hockey media, has done is take Sean Avery’s quote out of context to make it seem as though Iginla was somehow boring.

Our commissioner hasn’t realized that he needs to probably do a better job of marketing the game and certainly some of the players in it.  Nobody cares about Jarome Iginla and guys like that. They’re just not exciting enough. They don’t bring enough to the game.

Obviously, out of context, that doesn’t look so good. “Nobody cares about Jarome Iginla!?” cries the media. “BUT HE SCORED 50 GOALS TWICE!!!” And that’s certainly true. But of course, the video of the interview is “no longer available,” so proper context is difficult to ascertain. However, I’m one of those Flames fans that’s always eager to play the insult card (a “no one hits my brother but me” type of thing), and in watching the clip originally, I just didn’t see the big deal. My feeling was that he was saying that Iginla deserved to be marketed better and that everyone AT THE NHL thought Iginla was boring.

And really, that depends on how you define “not exciting.” Does Iginla score flashy, highlight-reel goals every night like Ovechkin or Toews? No. Does he go through four guys and make a perfect pass to a waiting teammate for a tap-in goal like Crosby or Kane? No. Does he even demolish people like Phaneuf? Not really. What Iginla does is simple: quietly go about being excellent. As a Flames fan, Iginla could murder a child right in front of me and I’d just go, “Oh, you!” He’s a great leader, great player and a great guy. Classiest guy in the league, by all accounts. Google it. But is he really THAT exciting? Quick, name five exciting things Jarome Iginla has done this year. Apart from being awesome at hockey, I’m coming up with nothin’. As far as I’m concerned, he’s diplomatic to a fault.

“He can say whatever he wants,” Iginla said. “I think the NHL has done a better job, especially since the lockout, with the players - of getting the players out there.

That, of course, isn’t especially true. Still, everyone on the planet would take boring ol’ Jarome Iginla on their team any day of the week because of his skill and that attitude.

That being said, Avery didn’t mean it like that. Not that we’d know. In all the fervent quote-gathering TSN has done for this story, no one bothered to give Avery a jingle and say, “You really mean that?” Of course not. He’s the guy that dated actresses and interned at Vogue. What a dick! If TSN was going to bother to dredge up out-of-context quotes from two months ago for this game and get everyone to comment on them again, the fact that Avery’s take all this time later isn’t being discussed seems awful dubious.

Instead, TSN just wants to take a dump on Avery, which is what this is really about. To wit, Iginla said, “We haven’t even talked about it for weeks,” which shows that it’s a non-issue. TSN did helpfully add these facts:

Iginla is enjoying another typically excellent season, leading the Flames in goals, assists and points while his team continues to battle the surprising Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Wild for the Northwest Division lead.

Meanwhile Avery leads the NHL in penalty minutes …  In addition Avery was called out by teammate Mike Modano for his selfish play and embarrassing antics after a loss to the Bruins in early November.

“Tonight, it was idiotic and stupid,” Modano told reporters after Avery and teammate Steve Ott argued with referees and fans. “It was one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen. If that’s what we’re going for, then they need to find me an office job.”

“It was dumb penalties, dumb situations, that’s kind of been the trend all season,” Modano said. “There’s no mental toughness. We’re allowing the refs to get involved in the game with and spending more energy on them than the details of winning the game.”

Because that’s important to this non-story.

We all know Sean Avery is an agitator on and off the ice and says WACKY things that piss people off. If Iginla had gotten over it already, shouldn’t everyone else?

Because I tend to not blog on the weekends, here is a feature that will run through the entire season. It aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact about each team that played. And hell, there’s a ton of other crap for me to blather on about too. And yes, I’m totally ripping off just about every other blogger ever’s weekly column, but that’s something you’ll have to deal with on your own time.

Danger: This post contains language that some people might not like. This will be the only thing on the site that regularly does so.

(Sorry for the lateness of this post. My internet was out pretty much all day yesterday, right up until 4 a.m., and you can only write so much of this mediocre garbage without internettery to check facts and so forth. Also it’s so hurried that I made no attempt to be especially funny. A thousand apologies.)

There’s a fundamental difference between an agitator and a punk. The line is very fine, of course, but such a line does, in fact, exist.

An agitator is someone who goes out and mouths off every shift, tries to get guys to take stupid retaliation penalties, and whose game teeters on the edge of gamesmanship rather unsportsmanlike horseshit. The perfect example of this is obviously Sean Avery.
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I was in New York yesterday and passed a Gap store with Sean Avery’s glamour shots in the window. It was the first time I had seen them in real life and I kind of laughed about it. My friend, who is not a sports fan, obviously didn’t know who Sean Avery was, or why I found him so hilarious.

I explained the “fatso” comment he directed at Marty Brodeur. I explained about him going out with Elisha Cuthbert. I explained the Avery Rule. I even, at the risk of making hockey sound lame, explained the Vogue internship.

“Yeah,” said my friend, “he seems pretty cool I guess.”

If only I had this story to explain as well. The Most Hated Man in the NHL would have been a huge hit.

Avery went on George Stroumboulopoulous’ (I swear that’s his real name) CBC show “The Hour,” and the topic of Don Cherry saying last year that the new Dallas Stars shift-disturber needed to be “straightened out.” Video’s here.

Said Avery (and those sensitive to swear words should turn their monitors off and light their computers on fire, then throw it out the window):

He’s a staple as far as Canadian hockey goes, and I grew up watching Coach’s Corner, and he serves a purpose.

But he really doesn’t know shit about hockey.

Stroumboulopoulous tried to interject, saying that Cherry, who’s been around the game longer than Avery’s been alive, knows quite a bit. Avery had to admit that was true.

He knows, like, unnecessary facts about putting Sears catalogues on your shin pads.

To put it in context, this is like someone in the NFL taking a run at John Madden for comments he made almost a year ago, if Madden hated Europeans.

Avery talks about why he wanted an internship at Vogue, too. It’s partially, he said, because he regrets dropping out of school in ninth grade, and having not learned to play the piano or read Moby Dick, which is a genuine enough reason to do anything. He called what junior hockey players go through in Canada to make it, “Terrible.”

Other highlights:

He gets his underwear ironed, he would delete the Canadiens from the NHL, when asked if he had slept with Kate Moss he replied “Not yet,”he supports Obama, and calls most hockey players “very, very simple.”

Sean Avery, from this interview, is a terribly fascinating person.