Take Plaxico Burress for example. He isn't that hard to understand. To him, and many other misguided black athletes, a concealed handgun isn't that much different from a diamond-encrusted Rolex watch. Expensive jewlerry and a Glock are the can't-leave-home-without-'em necessities for many athletes/wannabe rap stars.
I have nothing profound to say about Plaxico's stupidity. He's trapped in a self-destructive cultural mindset that won't be altered by get-tough suspensions from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
I also have little news to offer, as it relates to Notre Dame retaining The Great Weis Hope for a fifth season. Notre Dame made a huge mistake giving Charlie Weis a contract extension, but the cost of fixing that mistake and the gettable candidates to replace TGWH prohibit the school from dismissing him. I get it.
What I don't understand this week is NHL commissioner Gary Bettman's overreaction to Sean Avery's slightly off-color joke about his peers dating his exes.
I am not trying to be flip, primitive, or insensitive. "Sloppy seconds" has never been to my knowledge, an obscenity.
I acknowledge that perhaps I was raised poorly. My parents divorced when I was four or five years old. My dad let me and my brother spend too much time sitting on a bar stool talking sports at his tavern, Jimmy's J Bar J.
My mother liked to play bingo and cards, take an occasional road trip to Churchill Downs and spend a Saturday morning playing the numbers at the local "peashake" houses. She didn't hide it.
But I was also raised at 25th Street Baptist Church. My dad once spanked me for saying "fart." I had well-established boundaries of decency and respect. And the Whitlocks, we love to laugh. We laugh at ourselves, the people we love, and everybody else. A dirty joke with a good punch line is always welcome at a Whitlock gathering.
My friends, a healthy cross section of blacks and whites, rich and poor, male and female, old and young are all the same way. I like to feel I'm part of mainstream America, with mainstream American values.
I just can't fathom the Sean Avery controversy. This has to be some kind of desperate publicity stunt for a terrific sport that is being ignored.
Obviously, Avery did not have to crack his joke in front of TV cameras. He should've saved it for the locker room, but indefinitely suspended by the league? Predictions that he'll never play again for the Dallas Stars?
Have we heard from Elisha Cuthbert? Is she pulling a Vivian Stringer and claiming that her role as Kim Bauer on "24" has been ruined by Avery's immature attempt at gamesmanship directed at Calgary's Dion Phaneuf?
I am not denying that Avery is an idiot. He has previously been accused of uttering a racial epithet at Georges Laraque. The league took no action because it was an impossible-to-prove he-said-it, between Avery and Laraque.
I'm sure that history played a small role in Bettman's overreaction. Bettman, I'm sure, is trying to stop Avery from turning into the NHL's John Rocker. Bettman could've handled it by issuing a statement from the league apologizing to Cuthbert and any offended fans and promising to suspend Avery for his next, remotely inappropriate public comment.
19 comments Last one added 7 months ago — Leave a Comment
JYOUNG 7 months ago
I'm going to have to disagree however I may be a tad biased as a Devils fan. The fact that they had to create a rule JUST because of him, speaks alot about him. Only he would stoop as low as to turn around and wave around in front of a goalie like that. He does things like that on top of other things as well that ruins the game. It is one thing to be an agitator and stick up for team mates, but its another thing to talk tough and annoy people and then run away from fights. If you're going to open your mouth and try to throw people off their game rather than play the game like it should be played, then you deserved to get in trouble. He refuses to fight, he just annoys. And then on top of that he says comments like that that make the NHL look bad. Yes, saying that it makes the NHL look bad can easily be seen as an overreaction but its not. The reputation of the NHL is very fragile, especially after the lockout. It is not as popular as it used to be, and doesn't get the coverage it used to, and here you are having players bad the NHL and players like that, it's bad for the sport and has no place in hockey.
In my opinion he shouldn't be allowed to play. I don't think it should happen because of this. I think whatever horrible next offense he does should be the last straw. Is it an overreaction? Perhaps a little bit, but it's really starting to get out of hand.
Nice article though.
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Daniel Arouchian 7 months ago
He doesn't make just the NHL look bad,but his teammates as well. No one is forcing Avery to play in the NHL..I'm pretty sure the NHL would be happy if he leaves and goes to Europe or Russia. Trust me no one will miss him here.
He's just like a little kid who wants attention.
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Jeff Badger 7 months ago
I'm torn on this one - I've posted on a bunch of stories with a similar comment: if he had used different words there would't be an issue. If Avery had said "Cast-offs" or "Left-overs" no parents would have to have been asked by their kids "Daddy, what's Sloppy Seconds?" and the NHL would have no decency issues to deal with.
That is the only issue here. And it was intentional, premeditated, and scripted. He dreamt it up for that moment, and it was the only thing he said to the media.
If he cleans the comment up for a family audience, which that small change would have done, Avery would have done exactly what he was trying to do - stirred a fire of interest for that game. I'll tell you, when I first heard the comment, I immediately started thinking which of my local bars would be most likely to air the Flames-Stars game.
That said, this should not be the outright banishment some are calling for. Yes he did something stupid, yes he's done other stupid things. So far, he's never injured another player intentionally. He's never severely broken any on-ice rule.
All he's done is generate a ton of publicity for a league that has a major problem doing so in the US. The NHL needs to learn how to use Avery's personality to their benefit to help promote the game, because he is very good at it, and it seems that is his goal. This was a good publicist away from being the best hyped game of the year. Instead, it was a huge dissappointment that nobody got to see Phaneuf put Avery through the boards.
The Stars, however, have a definite greivance with Avery. Dave Tippet flat out asked Avery if he was going to talk to the media moments before he gave the comment. Avery told him to his face "No." Last I checked, lieing to your boss moments before you stand up in front of a camera and embarass your employer isn't generally a good career move.
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Timothy Chubb 7 months ago
I agree with you I'm also torn.
One one side I think, this is an embarrassment to the hockey world, NHL, and Dallas Stars. This isn't the NFL or MLB where players are huge showboaters. The NHL in my opinion is more classy. Avery is not classy at all. I play ice hockey and know what goes on the locker room and I'm sure most of us at one time can attribute to knowing what goes on in there. This was locker room talk on cameras. I think it was inappropriate.
However, look what Chase Utley said on television without delay. No punishment, not even a slap on the wrist. I think what Utley said was called for of course being a die hard Phillies fan..but dropping the f bomb and saying sloppy seconds are in two different worlds.
I can't make up my mind. And regardless Avery is unwanted in the league. Its an overreaction but I still don't think he'll tone down the crap. He needs to grow up.
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M MacDonald Hall 7 months ago
I hear you Jeff. I almost didn't write an article on this, but there were so many comments and tangental opinions. I've already said it all too many times, but I just don't have an opinion anymore, and can't believe this has become so comprehensively covered.
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Christian Araos 7 months ago
I disagree since if he wasn't suspended Phaneuf would've done something that would make the attacks done by Dale Hunter, Marty McSorely, and Chris Simon look childish. The immediate suspension was necessary to prevent a far bigger situation. As an Islander fan, I saw Avery many times during his tenure with the Rangers and it was classless and cowardly. One instance after coming in on DP's (Rick DiPietro) crease after he had covered the puck, DP punches him and gets penalized; the season before that he (Avery) and aggravated a concussion that DP had just come back from and it almost cost the Islanders a playoff birth.
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Josh Lewis 7 months ago
Jason, this article is brilliant. I thought from the beginning that the league and the media were overreacting. I mean, I had to look up "sloppy seconds" to see what it meant. It's not as if Avery used a grossly offensive term like the N-word.
Sure, it didn't need to be said on camera, but I think this kind of smack, within reason, is good for the league. It needs more sandpaper, more rivalry between players. Fans eat it up. As for people predicting he won't play again this season, that's ridiculous. He probably won't return to Dallas because his teammates hate him. But other teams will line up to get him.
I can't say I'm surprised at the NHL's reaction. Bettman proved long ago that he doesn't know how to market his league.
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David Reyes 7 months ago
I agree to an extent. His comments could have been a lot worse, but people talk trash all the time in all sports. But involving someone's girlfriend is just a little out of line, with that, however, it should be up to the team for disciplinary actions, not the league.
From a marketing aspect, in a weird way, this is good. When was the last the NHL made headlines?
The NHL needs a complete makeover, it's sad.
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Daniel Arouchian 7 months ago
Let's not forget it's not the first time Avery made headlines.This guy is immature and wants attention like a little kid. He's a public relation's nightmare for any team. God have mercy on the soul of the Gm who'll sign him if Dallas gets rid of him.
The NHL doesn't need Avery,not like he'll be missed by anyone.
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David Reyes 7 months ago
Let's say the NHL bans Sean Avery...what good does that do him? More harm than benefit when you consider profit. The NHL is struggling, they need all the help that they can get.
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Josh Lewis 7 months ago
Sure, he's immature and he wants attention. So what? I don't think he's a PR nightmare at all, except maybe for the time he made racial remarks about Denis Gauthier.
Say Avery goes to a crappy market like Miami or Atlanta and continues to hog the limelight. You'd see a lot more people in those markets paying attention to their hockey teams, simply to see what Avery does next.
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Jonathon Loughridge 7 months ago
This is so bush league of the NHL. I mean, suspending someone because they said a derrogatory comment at another player and an ex-girlfriend he still has bad feelings toward? This is Roger Goodell to the max. Bettman (whose name I had never heard until this article) is going way overboard with a comment to some members of the media. This suspension is unfair and unwarranted.
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Daniel Arouchian 7 months ago
They don't need players making personal attacks at each other. He crossed the line. With the comments that Avery does all the time the NHL will struggle more.
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Joe Scott 7 months ago
This truly shows the difference between the value system of the United States and Canada. Hockey fans in general do find what Avery said to be offensive because they have a higher standards of behaviour that they expect from the NHL players. I am greatfull to Roger Goodell and Gary Bettman for being men of integrity who have stepped up and estblished a clear line of what is acceptable or not.
Athletes do have some responsiblity to the community and the fans and are examples for our children. They have to accept this because if they continue down the road of "I don't care what the fans think" it will soon become a case of the fans not caring about the athlete.
Case in point, Mr. Barry Bonds Jr. According to many media sources, fellow players and fans, Bonds truly was a rotten guy and now he pays the price for his arrogance. Be honest when you think of the greatest HR hitters of all time, does he really come into the conversation? While Mr. Bonds complains that he does not recieve the love he say he deserves,this simply may be a case of reaping what you sown.
All I can say is wake up, professional athletes. Don't kill your golden goose! If somebody offered me a deal where I would make $100 million over 15 years and all I would have to do is not break the law, not take illegal drugs, fake smile for the media and try to be a nice guy, I think anyone in America would take the deal.
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Dylan O'Brien 7 months ago
Jason, I thought I was the only one with the cahones to stand up for Avery on this one. Well, not exactly stand up for him, but since he is the biggest promoter of the NHL, he deserves to not be scapegoated for a blown-out-of-proportion statement about some North-of-the-border 'puckbunny', who frankly lost all of my respect when she left the cast of '24'. Ultimately, the guy has zero integrity, but people in the States don't hear about the NHL unless Avery is involved, and his most recent outburst (if you want to call it that) just happened to be the last straw with Bettman.
I hate how people find reasons to praise Bettman when he is much worse for the NHL then Sean Avery will ever be. I would rather have a mediocre player running his mouth relentlessly, than a garbage commissioner who purposely tanked the NHL. Tough choice, huh guys?
Bottom line. Sean Avery isn't the antichrist, he's just a jerk.
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Long John Silver 7 months ago
JASON
as an outsider
if anything, this helps your NHL
i dont know nothin about it - but now i'll pay attention to sean play puck, thinkin - ohhhh heres the bloike who talked about sloppy seconds
there is nothing called as BAD Publicity
its an oxy-moron
the regulatory body prob over-reacted, but it will help NHL
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Long John Silver 7 months ago
besides
the actual penalty is not for this transgression alone, life hardly works tht way
this i think is that breaking point transgression - hes pissed many people off
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Steven Resnick 7 months ago
People are hypocrites like anyone can say they've never said anything bad about an ex girlfriend! Sure, it was a little harsh what Avery said. Should he have been suspended for it? No. If Phaneuf reacted like someone suggested and made his attack worse than Marty McCsorley then it's Phaneuf who looks like the idiot.
Phaneuf just has to ignore it. That's the thing people are making it into a big deal because there's not many stories that come out of Hockey. Bettman should have called Avery into his office to have a chat about his behavior, but to suspend him is just as dumb as what Avery said.
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Nathan B 7 months ago
I may have said bad things about ex-girlfriends, but I didn't say stuff like that on national TV.
Here's some examples of things you can't say, that don't have any swear words in them, the equivalent of saying, "sloppy seconds":
"My ex-girlfriend's box tasted like a fish taco."
"My ex-girlfriend let me stick it in her butt on a regular basis and then I'd give her a Dirty Sanchez."
"Hey, is this an Open Mic? It is? Cool, 'cause my ex-girlfriend wanted to know if anyone would be willing to give her a Cleveland Steamer. You know, take a dump on her chest after you have sex with her. 'Cause she's so into that, man. What a slut. Make sure you donkey-punch her afterward."
Get the picture? You can't walk around and use a bunch of frat house slang after asking to see if you've got an open mic to the media first. I agree the suspension was overblown; I would have heavily fined him instead. He's not just some frat boy talking to his buddies; he's a PROFESSIONAL athlete, who by contract, must comport himself profesionally as he represents fans (including kids), the league, the team, the owners, etc. He doesn't have to be a role model. There's just some things he's not allowed to say.
Go find a media outlet, even as a non-athlete, make sure you say Avery's line or one of the above examples, make sure your job finds out, and see how long you keep your job.
Seriously, I can't believe people think Avery shouldn't have been punished for this. Even he knows he should have been -- did you see his comments from today?
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