Blowing Smoke: The Sean Avery and Steve Williams Debacle

Please, don’t take offense, Phil. And Elisha, it’s nothing personal.

But guys, it’s time to grow up.
 
Maybe I’ve been subscribing too much to the Judd Apatow School of Crude, Base, and Immoral Thoughts, but there’s no reason for last week’s uproar surrounding the golfer and the girlfriend.

For those who may not have seen the recent news, Phil Mickelson, he of southpaw putts and a penchant for heartbreaking losses, was addressed by someone else’s caddie in rather odious terms. The word seems to have, ahem, pricked at the thin skin of Mickelson, a golfer known more for his pudgy, pouty dregs than his powerful, prolonged drives. But the real crime, it appears, was not that Mickelson’s tender feelings were trod upon; rather, it’s the fact that the name-calling came from the caddie of the GOAT, Tiger Woods.

In similar straits as the droopy Mickelson is Elisha Cuthbert, best known as “The Girl Next Door,” who seems to have made a few enemies along her way to stardom. Cuthbert may have broken onto the scene as that girl from “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”, but she’s since broken the heart of the wrong hockey player.

With his spirit charred by Cuthbert’s burn, former boyfriend Sean Avery, late of the Dallas Stars, resorted to throwing Cuthbert back into her “Next Door” role by calling her an alliterative synonym for “unkempt after-firsts”. (Sorry, there aren’t many synonyms for “seconds.”)

According to the fervor meeting each “offensive” disturbance, you’d think that Avery and Williams had been pulling Bernard Madoff’s strings or were at least responsible for the (hilarious) shoe-throwing fiasco of Bush’s victory lap.

But in fact, these two professionals did something far more unseemly, far more insidious than actual ruining bank accounts or expressing their disgust at the pointless loss of thousands of lives. They called other people names.

That’s right. These two men, decidedly successful at the highest levels—granted, Williams is simply an intelligent pack mule, but can you name any other caddies on the circuit?—brought out their second-grade weapons of derisiveness and bombarded their enemies with (shudder) names.

Now, you’d think that these two would have earned certain leeway when it comes to expressing their opinions. After all, Williams has prodded Woods to become God’s gift to golfers, eclipsing record upon record and earning the most words of accolade since JFK.

And while Avery may not have earned the hardware that lines Woods’ yacht, he has, arguably, accomplished something far more noteworthy: piqued my (and many others’) interest in the NHL. As much as Gary Bettman turns me off with his elfish looks and corporate folly, it’s the crazed warriors like Avery that keep me returning to the once-moribund NHL.

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