I truly detest Sean Avery. He is a vulgar, annoying narcissist with no respect for the game that provides him with a very good lifestyle. I know that everyone applauds the 6-game suspension handed down by the NHL for Avery's ridiculous outburst in Calgary. However, my gut feeling is that it was wrong.
Bettman's justification for the suspension's length included Avery's prior history of questionable behavior, including his previous sit-downs with Bettman and Colin Campbell; the League's desire to send a message that Avery's conduct wasn't representative of the NHL or its players; and consideration for fans in light of the vulgarity of Avery's comments.
But the NHL have inadvertently set a very low bar with respect to off ice behaviour. If Avery's comments are inappropriate, well what about the frequent comments by Don Cherry that are outright xenophobic. I don't see the NHL demanding that he be removed from hockey telecasts.
If next week the media reports that a Calgary player was charged by police for assaulting his wife, what will the NHL do? Isn't wife abuse worse than insulting an ex-girlfriend? How about drunk driving? Tax evasion? Not making support payments? Once you join the morality police where do you draw the line?
On ice trash talking is a regular occurrence in the NHL. But when have you ever seen a player get assessed a misconduct penalty for trash talking? That is what created that ridiculous altercation between Avery and Darcy Tucker last season during a pre-game warm up. The reason Avery made the comment off ice is because he gets away with it on ice. You see the league has never even addressed Avery's on ice behaviour.
And what about the requirement to attend anger management therapy? How is that related to the ridiculous comments by Avery? He doesn't have an anger management problem, he is just makes bad decisions in his life. Meanwhile, why aren't players who lose it in a game aren't sent for anger management therapy?
It's the lack of any consistency that gets me.
