Huh, I didn’t even realize they were playing again….I kid, well kind of.

Just let him and the guy he was talking about settle it on the ice.

What a pussy move by the NHL.

I’d be insanely angry if I was Avery, though from the quotes I read from the Stars and their players in sounds like they all really hate Sean Avery. No one stood up for him at all.

Still, I don’t understand the craziness over his comments.

An opposing player is dating his ex. He’s not allowed to say shit about it? Weak.

two times

Hockey makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

the NHL basically said, “we will suspend you the next time you get out of line, no matter the offense.”

Avery was a really stupid sign by Brett Hull and Les Jackson. As evidenced by the comments from his teammates, nobody on the team really likes him.

I would liken him to a Dennis Rodman type character, who’s good, but whose attitude is so far from the norm that the league doesn’t know how to handle him.

I am offended by vulgarity in the title of his post.

Wonder if the fact that the incident took place in Canada has anything to do with it … considering the hate-speech smackdown the Canadian Human Rights Commission can inflict up there.

Elisha Cuthbert picture thread.

…this was a hilarious post, DJC

he called Martin Brodeur fatso after MB refused to shake his hand after the stick waving incident.

Avery was suspended indefinitely by commissioner Gary Bettman for making “inappropriate public comments, not pertaining to the game.”

so lets get this straight. nothing was said about the refs? nothing about the other players? nothing about his team? nothing about his management? nothing about the NHL sucking? ….nope

Reporters were waiting to speak with Avery about disparaging remarks he’d made last month about Flames star Jarome Iginla when Avery walked over to the group and asked if there was a camera present. When told there was, he said, “I’m just going to say one thing.”

“I’m really happy to be back in Calgary; I love Canada,” he said. “I just want to comment on how it’s become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my (former girlfriends). I don’t know what that’s about, but enjoy the game tonight.” He then walked out of the locker room.

this is the most insane suspension in the history of professional sports.

do people think he would have gotten suspended if he had said everything exactly as is but said “past girlfriends” instead of “sloppy seconds”

i don’t. so, I’m not going to be pushing all that hard to defend my right to use “sloppy seconds” in the press.

have some class, pretend you didn’t grow up in a trailer park

Bettman probably suspended Avery because Bettman must have been hittin Cuthbert as well, and he didn’t like to be referred to as “sloppy seconds”

But in seriousness, can someone in their right mind please fire Bettman? He is the reason for the downfall of hockey. Early in the 90s, right after the NYR won the cup, everyone was talking about how this was now one of the top sports league in the US (after the NFL, mainly because of the baseball strike and the retirement of Jordan in NBA), but now no one cares about it. This man is the reason. Does no one get it that every arena he goes to no one cheers for him but boos his ass off?

I do like the conspiracy that is going around with him. See, Bettman use to work for the NBA. Some believe that Stern secretly is paying him to drive down the NHL so Stern’s league can get all the press and the glory.

cahill’s top photo is one of the most airbrushed i’ve ever seen. I’m not even sure that she needed to wear any makeup for that

All y’all who are so quick to tag this situation as another example of political correctness run amok are missing the true culprit here. This isn’t some kind of liberal conspiracy to make athletes limit their off-field/out-of-arena/off-ice comments to the orphans they read to and their latest crocheting projects.

It’s about business. Specifically, it’s all about keeping up the image that most North American professional sports leagues have of being “family-friendly”.

Look at baseball. If you’ve ever been to a game at Fenway Park or Wrigley Field, you know it’s a whole different cultural experience from The Ballpark. Both of those places were built for midgets to sit in the seats and smell of decades’ worth of piss and farts. I also love seeing games at both parks on the rare occasion I have the chance. There are no dot races, no kids on the jumbotron and no promotions for families with children. It’s just about baseball.

Now look at The Ballpark. It’s cavernous, a hell of a lot more comfortable than either Fenway or Wrigley, it doesn’t smell like a gas station bathroom and everything is about promoting the Rangers and going to a baseball game as a family experience. From the dot races and the birthday parade on the Jumbotron to having kids run the bases after the game and get fireworks shot for them when the hit homers in the whiffle ball park, it’s not baseball so much as it’s a family entertainment experience. I believe Tom Hicks said that at some point in time.

The Ballpark is the face of MLB that Bud Selig loves. Likewise, every other major professional sports league in the U.S. holds itself out as being family entertainment. Yes, even the NHL. Why? Bringing the kids along means more butts in seats, more concessions sales and more merchandise sales.

This isn’t about political correctness. It’s a failing business model (the NHL) marketing a product with no heartbeat (the “New NHL”) to a sporting public that increasingly is more interested in spending their entertainment dollars elsewhere. Their fear is that if Sean Avery is running around talking about his sloppy seconds that they will lose their family fanbase.

That’s not being PC. That’s being desperate for business.

It’s too bad Bettman suspended him when he did. I was looking forward to Phaneuf making a yard sale out of him.

I think the Avery situation is pathetic, that they’d suspend him for that comment (the league). If the Stars wanted to do that in-house, fine…but they didn’t. The league did. I know the NHL and NFL are different beasts, but if PacMan Jones is still able to set a foot on an NFL field and actually get paid for doing anything other than mowing the grass…there is NO way Avery should be fined or suspended.

On the flipside, I believe as talented as he is and as hurt as our team is right now, Avery is a cancer and a failed experiment thus far and will probably not live up to his contract…and I’d love to wash our hands of him right now.

just a coupla minutes

That’s when you know you’re desperate for publicity.