Shug Avery Returns to Broadway with Rangers as The Color Purple Leaves New York

Somebody should tell Oprah that Shug Avery is returning to Broadway just as The Color Purple leaves New York to tour America. Nobody calls Sean Avery "Shug" or "Broadway" but maybe we should.

A sweeter Sean Avery has returned to the New York Rangers just as "Shug" Avery and The Colour Purple, the Broadway play, is closing after 30 previews, 910 regular performances, and eleven Tony Awards nominations. The new Sean Avery has been called mild but nobody has called him "Shug".

The only "Sugar" he has been compared to is the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson and his buddy Brandon "Sugar" Sugden of the Hartford Wolf Pack in the AHL who plays hockey like a boxer.

At Avery’s First Rangers Practice, It’s Hugs All Around, Lynn Zinser's headline read in the New York Times. Headlines across America said "Avery Back On Broadway", referring to his return to the New York Rangers just before the NHL trade deadline.

"The Color Purple" began as Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Alice Walker, a hit movie by Steven Spielberg and finally became a Tony-winning Broadway musical produced by Scott Sanders, Quincy Jones and Oprah Winfrey. Without appearing on Oprah, Sean Avery after anger management has been described as an on-ice Deepak Chopra.

In the hockey movie called The Love Guru, the Mike Myers character who plays the title role can only dream of going on Oprah and becoming the next Deepak Chopra. Maybe Sean Avery's comeback with the Rangers, plus his Gap ads, internship with Vogue, and the article he wrote for Men's Vogue which inspired a movie now in the works by New Line Cinema will get him on Oprah.

The movie version of The Color Purple feature Oprah Winfrey in the role of Celie.

The movie inspired by Avery's stint at Vogue is said to be something of a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, whas was also inspired by Vogue's New York operation. There is a new book out about Sean Avery called The Devil Wear's Bauer (Not Prada) by Martin Avery -- that's me -- and my father's nickname, coincidentally, was Shug Avery. Sean Avery's father, Al Avery, is a teacher for the Durham District School Board and so am I. (We aren't related except, possibly, numerous generations ago. A lot of people named Avery have roots in Avebury, England, near Stonehenge.)

The original Broadway production starred Elisabeth Withers-Mendes as Shug Avery. The character called Shug Avery in the book, play, and movie seems litile more than a flashy blues singer who selfish and arrogant.

However, the key to Shug's character is the element of surprise: Shug always catches us off-guard, according to the Cliff's Notes. In particular, we never expect the self-centered and seemingly superficial Shug to awaken love and self-esteem in Celie, and we certainly never expect Celie to awaken generosity in Shug.

The Rangers do expect Avery to awaken the sleepers on the New York Rangers and to re-awaken the Rangers fans in Madison Square Gardens.

The nickname of "Shug," suggests super-sweetness, a quality that is exactly diametrical to the "real" Shug. She is famous for saing things like "You sure is ugly." So is Sean Avery. He once told another hockey player, "Your dog is supposed to lick your face, not chew on it".

Shug's selfishness leads to lonely isolation, but Shug is a "changer"; she starts singing the blues, then turns to a fast snappy ragtime tune.

Jazz by its very nature is unpredictable and improvisational, and Shug is jazzy because she invents rules and cannot be contained. That describes the way Sean Avery plays hockey and explains why the NHL names new rules after him.

"Shug" is bisexual and the Dallas Observer reported that Sean Avery has been called "faggot" by other trash-talking hockey players for the way he dresses, his interest in high fashion, and the fact he played with Barbies when he was a little boy.

He told reporters he found gay friends when he moved to Dallas, not long before they said he did not fit in with the team and then banished him. The Dallas Observer made a point of saying he is not gay and had been romantically linked to Hollywood actress Elisha Cuthbert, Sports Illustrated swimsuit and Playboy model Rachel Hunter, and Calvin Klein's ex, Kelly Klein.