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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The perfect marriage between Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane might finally be over. Their feud over which one gets votes onto the All-Star team has spilled from the dressing room and onto the internet, where the two forwards are now waging a bitter war for votes.

Toews, for example, believes Kane to be a liar and a turncoat. Not the kind of guy you’d want representing your Chicago Blackhawks at the All-Star game.

Kane, on the other hand, doesn’t think we should trust someone that can’t spell “Taves.”

Brian Campbell, by the way, is your third-party candidate.

Things are only going to get worse come January.

(Big ups to Trevor Bird on this one.)

I was watching this fight between Zach Stortini and Krys Barch from yesterday’s Stars/Oilers game, and it wasn’t bad. Never mind the post-Thanksgiving miracle that is Stortini not trying to bearhug his opponent to death like King Kong Bundy.

What makes it an all-time classic is the line the announcers get out right as the fight ends. In explaining that Barch’s job — sticking up for teammates who are more or less indefensible — was one of the toughest in sports, the color commentator says, “Krys Barch’s first job was working something called ‘the anus vaccuum’ on the killfloor of a slaughterhouse.’”

I don’t think I even want to know what that means, but one suspects David Frost is involved in some way.

By the way, Krys Barch is to be known as The Anus Vacuum henceforth, obviously.

Reader Robert Soderlind sent this in while I was out participating in the American night-before-Thanksgiving tradition of drinking with people you haven’t seen since you graduated high school:

Anyone that gets deked out of their Vapours by Johan Franzen (and isn’t within three inches of the crease) probably isn’t doing their job properly.

Ryan O’Byrne, who had his second gaffe in as many games, got smoked like a Lucky Strike on this one by a guy whose skill is bordering on Jeff Taffe levels of mediocrity.

Seriously, the Habs need to trade O’Byrne to a junior B team in Chicotoumi yesterday. At this point, NHL players are just embarrassing him.

My internet and television have both been spotty as hell tonight so I didn’t watch any hockey games. I did, however, get this sent to me by reader “Lexus Prime,” which I am assuming is his real name. As a consequence, you will get no Good Night. Settle for this and take your issues with my lack of posting up with Comcast.

Check this out: On a delayed call for the Habs, Ryan O’Byrne is pressured by Doug Weight back into his own zone and puts the puck into his own net. O’Byrne’s side of the story is that he was unaware of the delayed call and thought he could pass it back to Carey Price, who was enjoying some Gatorade on the bench. You see where this is going. Bill Guerin was credited with the goal.

The goal tied the game at 3-all inside of five minutes to go in the third period and the Habs ended up losing to the Islanders in the shootout. Also, it’s important to note that this happened IN Montreal, and the fans understandably got on him for the rest of the game.

This could be the best thing that ever happened. O’Byrne’s reaction is my new all-time favorite gesture. But he has to be traded now, right? He’s been awful all season, but this must be the end of the Ryan O’Byrne era with Les Habitants.

Last night during the Oilers/Avalanche game, Ian Laperriere and Zach Stortini got into a bit of a tussle over the fact that Craig MacTavish kept sending thugs like Stortini and Steve MacIntyre out there just to cause a problem.

Laperriere didn’t like Oilers coach Craig MacTavish taking a shot at him either. “He kept sending those guys out there when it was 4-1 and I don’t think it was to score goals. Cracked me up a bit. It’s kind of funny a guy who never fought, sends those guys out there.”

So Laperriere eventually dropped the gloves with Stortini and you can see the result here.

As is usually the case, Stortini wanted no part of actually trading punches (Calgary fans call him “Huggy Bear” for a reason), and Laperriere took exception to that.

“He’s (Stortini) 240 pounds and he comes after a guy like me who’s 195. I have a hard time with that. And he keeps punching when guys are down. He’ll learn, he’ll find his match,” said Laperriere, who got a counter-punch from Stortini. He also was stung by the verbal roundhouse right.

This has been the argument against Stortini almost from the time he broke into the league with Edmonton. If you’re going to fight, great, someone has to. But what Stortini does most of the time isn’t fighting so much as it is tryouts for the more romantic scenes of movies like The Notebook. For similar fights, look here, here, here, here, here, and here. And also worth noting is that I wrote all those “here”-s without actually searching out Stortini’s huggable fights. I went in knowing I could find half a dozen no problem.

So the other day, Kris Chucko and Carsen Germyn, both members of the Quad City Flames, went on the Dwyer and Michaels Morning Show and, from what I can ascertain, fired t-shirts at passing with a compressed air gun for no good reason.

There has been no reasonable explanation that I can find for why they were doing this, what they were promoting or what the Dwyer and Michaels Morning Show is (besides, presumably, “unlistenable.”)

I haven’t heard this show, but with two “wacky” middle aged guys and a mildly-attractive slightly younger woman, you know this show is an absolute chucklefest in U.S. market No. 146.

The goal, apparently, was to try to get them into the open window of consenting motorists (notice the double beep). Not only did they go 0-fer, but they also drew the attention of both a policeman and local business owner, who no doubt were bribed away with a free t-shirt of their own.

Check out these hilarious hijinks.

Presented without comment: Patrick Kane helps two guys make cheesesteak.

Umm, what?

Wanted to get to this in the nightly wrap, but I figured it warranted its own post.

Down 7-4 inside 20 seconds to go, Thrashers rookie defenseman Zach Bogosian finished a check against Washington’s Dave Steckel. No big deal. Then for some reason, Donald Brashear just goes after the kid. Welcome to the NHL, Zach. I guess.

Watch it here. For some reason I’m struggling to embed it.

I’m a big proponent of fighting, but this wasn’t fair and it wasn’t part of the game. It was a legit NHL heavyweight pounding trying to beat the christ out of a rookie who was just doing what he’s supposed to do.

Low-rent move by Brashear, and, according to the NHL rulebook, maybe not cool with them.

47.12 Instigator in Final Five Minutes of Regulation Time (or Anytime in Overtime) - A player or goalkeeper who is deemed to be the instigator of an altercation in the final five (5) minutes of regulation time or at any time in overtime shall be assessed an instigator minor penalty, a major penalty for fighting, and a game misconduct penalty (see 47.22).

And an “instigator” is a person that does this: “An instigator of an altercation shall be a player or goalkeeper who by his actions or demeanor demonstrates any/some of the following criteria: distance traveled; gloves off first; first punch thrown…”

Sounds about right, but Brashear only got the five-minute major and a roughing call. I guess the difference between me and an NHL ref is my inability to see why the latter doesn’t make him the instigatr.

Again, fight all you want. Have 15 fights a game. I’d love it. But this wasn’t right.

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.