A Campaign For A Hart For Sean Avery Ain't Enough For Boy In The Box

"Pull up your sox
You're the boy in the box
What did the rebel say?
When the wolf cried "fox"
To the boy in the box
Will you come out to play"
-- Cory Hart, Boy In The Box

Young William: I can fight.
Malcolm Wallace: I know you can fight. But it's our wits that make us men.
-- from Braveheart

Many hockey fans think of Sean Avery as a heartless so-and-so but some have learned to love him. When coach John Tortorella was hired by the New York Rangers General Manager, Glen Sather, he assured him, "You'll learn to love him."

Avery has won over twenty thousand Rangers fans in Madison Square Garden, as well as Tortorella and his teammates, plus a growing number of sportswriters, but his old reputation still haunts him.

Many hockey fans watch Avery, waiting for him to snap, hoping he will lose his so-called Zen-like calm and flip out on somebody.

Instead of using his hockey stick like a Zen stick and tapping a goalie, they expect to see him two-hand somebody, use his stick like a tomahawk, or clock a goalie with an elbow the way Mike Green hit Fredrik Sjostrom in Game 1 of the NHL playoff series between the Rangers and the Washington Capitals.

Avery played the role of the un-masked avenger for Sjostrom, sending Green cartwheeling into the Rangers bench, just as Sjostrom came to Avery's rescue when Boston Bruins' goalie Tim Thomas sprinted from his goal crease to center ice to hit Avery from behind, a few games before the end of the season.

Some hockey fans still want to see Avery run a goalie the way Corey Perry of the Anahiem Ducks hit Brian Boucher, the goaltender of the San Jose Sharks, and then see him get suspended for the second time in his career like Dan Carcillo at the end of the Philadelphia Flyers game with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Carcillo is an enforcer for the Flyers, as Colton Orr is for the Rangers. Avery plays a different role. He's still ready, willing, and able to fight, but his role is evolving, like the NHL itself.

In his rookie year, with the Detroit Red Wings, they won the Stanley Cup and Avery spent a lot of time playing for the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, alongside Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaff, racking up over 300 minutes in penalties.

After he got traded to the Los Angeles Kings, he led the league in penalties for two years.

In junior hockey, playing in the Ontario Hockey League, he was more of a scorer, and he started to return to that role when he joined the Rangers. He cut his penalty minutes in half.

He added an element of toughness to the Rangers, but he became a fan favorite for other reasons. He played the game with passion and great energy and the Rangers Nation loved that.

Some Rangers fans called him the spine of the team, others said he played his heart out for New York, particularly when he was declared dead after playing with a lacerated spleen in the second round of the NHL playoffs last season, with the Rangers facing the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Rumors of his death, obviously untrue, led to a kind of death, as he was traded to the Dallas Stars and they dumped him after the NHL suspended him indefinitely. It looked like his hockey life was over, unless he wanted to go to Siberia and play in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL).

Instead, he went to the NHL/NHLPA's program of behaviour modification, or anger management, and made an incredible comeback to the NHL. He played his way into game shape with the Hartford Wolf Pack of the AHL and then rejoined the Rangers and the NHL.

Avery was welcomed warmly, to say the least, by Rangers fans in Madison Square Garden, but got a reception like a horrible initiation by other fans and hockey players on other teams, not to mention the referees.

In Montreal, Boston, Philadelphia, and other arenas where the Rangers played in the stretch run, Avery was booed whenever he stepped on the ice or touched the puck and the other teams' enforcers, tough guys, and just about everybody else appeared to line up to hit  him. Some say the referees looked the other way.

He still played hard and tough, he chirped and yapped, and showed he was ready to back up the chirping by dropping his gloves and helmet for an old-fashioned hockey fight. But he picked his opportunities and only fought twice, when it would give his team a lift.

When he fought Cal Clutterbuck of the Minnesota Wild, who led the league in penalties and in hits, Avery's teammates banged their sticks on the boards, showing their approval, the Rangers fans went crazy in the stands, and sports writers echoed their sentiments in headlines around the hockey world.

It is the sports writers and broadcasters, along with General Managaers, who decide who gets the Hart Trophy, which is supposed to go to t the "player adjudged most valuable to his team" in the NHL. The Hart Memorial Trophy, originally known as the Hart Trophy, the "oldest and most prestigious individual award in hockey".

MVP voters, however, often are attracted to the biggest scorers. This year, Alex Ovechkin leads the race for the Hart and is expected to win again.

The league announced the finalists, chosen by a vote of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association at the end of the regular season. The winner will be announced in June, during the NHL awards show.

Ovechkin, the league's goal-scoring leader led the Capitals to second place in the Eastern Conference of the NHL. The Caps have built their franchise around him.

Even though he scores big goals, got a goal a game for three games, and finished the season scoring at a pace that would have given him two dozen for the season, Avery is not likely to challenge Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby for the Art Ross Trophy for points or the Rocket Richard Award for scoring goals.

The Hart has not always gone to the top goal-scorer or points getter. Eddie Shore won it four times while playing for the Boston Bruins back in 1920s. Shore, known as the "Iceman," was a very aggressive and tough hockey player.

His career was full of controversy. He suffered numerous serious injuries as a result of violent play.

Shore was a bruiser known for violence. He set an NHL record for 165 penalty minutes in his second season. He almost killed Ace Bailey of the Toronto Maple Leafs with a vicious hit.

Only three Rangers have ever won the Hart: Buddy O'Connor, in 1948, Chuck Rayner in 1950, and Mark Messier in 1992.

Players from the Montreal Canadiens have won the Hart sixteen times. Players from Boston Bruins are second with twelve winners.

The Detroit Red Wings have seen players win the award nine times. Dave Dye, a columnist with the Detroit News, has complained that Steve Yzerman never won the Hart and neither did Nicklas Lidstrom.

Dye argues the Red Wings should win the Hart as a team as they have had nine consecutive 100-point seasons and four straight 50-win seasons but haven't had a player win the Hart during this period.

Maybe the Wings are campaigning now for next year and that's what the Rangers Nation should be doing for their fan favorite.

Avery is still the hockey player many hockey fans outside of New York still love to hate and they can't stand the idea that he has changed or is evolving. They will scream at the mere mention of the names Avery and Hart in the same sentence.

Several players have won the award twice, including Stan Mikita, Bobby Hull, Guy Lafleur, Mark Messier, and Dominik Hasek. Howie Morenz, Bobby Clarke, Bobby Orr and Mario Lemieux each won the award 3 times.

Gordie Howe won it 6 times and Wayne Gretzky was awarded the Hart Trophy 9 times.

All the Hart Trophy winners were later inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Avery is already famous for The Avery Rule, a Gap ad, appearing in the Rocket Richard Movie, his own Hollywood movie deal, and leading the league in penalties, being voted most hated by other NHL players, and being crowned the King of the Agitators and the Superpest.

He may be the most colorful hockey player in this era of the NHL and might win the Most Improved Player this year, if there was such a thing. In the imaginations of many hockey fans, he remains the boy in the penalty box.

In this era of hope and change, his bad rep still haunts him. If there was a Hockey Hall of Infamy, Avery would be a surefire bet to get in. Maybe that's why he wears those funny-looking shades on the streets of Manhattan.