So, I'm having a hard time getting my head around this whole Sean Avery commotion. If you haven't heard, the NHL has suspended the notorious bad-boy -- now playing for the Dallas Stars, a team that should never have existed in the first place, not that I'm still bitter or anything -- because he made a somewhat crass reference to an opponent's girlfriend.Seriously, that's how I would refer to it -- "somewhat crass." Not "libelous" or "hateful" or even "a disgustingly typical example of the decline of today's standards of decorum as demonstrated on a daily basis by young men between the ages of 21 and 30." Because I've heard worse. In fact, I hear worse every day.
Here's what Avery had to say to the assembled press corps at a pregame skate in Calgary on Monday:
"I'm really happy to be back in Calgary. I love Canada. 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 sloppy-seconds. I don't know what that's about, but enjoy the game tonight."
Umm ... OK ... Sure, Avery has dated a couple of starlet/model types who have gone on to date other NHL players. And sure, Avery is known as pretty much one of the bigger jerks in the game right now (just ask Martin Brodeur).
But seriously, people -- have we reached the point where we suspend players and crank up the outrage level to code-red when a professional athlete says something tacky or classless? His comments weren't racist. You could argue that they're borderline sexist, although I view them as primarily directed at the players in question, not at his exes.
The only way this approaches the level to which NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has taken it is if you know the "textbook" definition of sloppy seconds, as offered by Urban Dictionary (possibly NSFW, definitely NSF anybody who's easily offended). But the term has pretty much slipped into common usage to the degree that it has lost most of its original meaning and 99.4 percent of its shock value.
Bottom line: you just can't legislate classiness. Send him to the principal's office, give him a stern talking-to, lecture him on decorum all you want. But an indefinite suspension? That's like clearing out some cobwebs with a blowtorch.
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Bravo, PD. For a soundbite that is allegedly so egregious, the WWL sure has been busy filling its banter shows with the clip unedited and verbatim. When I first heard there was a controversy, I surely expected it to be bad enough not to be heard unfiltered. Not so.
I say if something isn't bad enough to be censored, it can't be that big a deal. But let's hope the FCC doesn't deem this one a sin. The slope is slippery enough as it is.
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