Anger Management Turns NHL's Most Hated Villain Into Rangers Rocky Hockey Hero

It's the feel-good story of the year, with Sean Avery saying "It certainly felt comfortable and warm and just exciting. It was like Christmas, running down the stairs before you get the presents," according to the New York Times on Mar. 4.

Sean Avery has become an unlikely symbol of hope and change over the past three months since he was dumped by the Dallas Stars for saying "sloppy seconds" on TV, and other sins.

After the NHL sent him to 'anger management', he made a comeback via the AHL and is now back in the NHL, reunited with the New York Rangers, who are the newest Cinderella team in New York City. And Avery is credited with their turnaround.

Avery's turnaround is so remarkable and unexpected it is making him the Rocky of hockey. Three months ago, it looked as though his career in hockey was over, or the only place for him to play was with a team like Minsk in the KHL.

Instead of getting shipped to Siberia, Avery took a six-game suspension from the NHL, without pay, and agreed to go to a joint NHL/NHLPA program of behaviour modification.

He is now a model hockey player with a Gap ad and a Hollywood movie in the works and a walking, working, skating advertisement for anger management who has been called "Deepak Chopra on skates."

Sean Avery has been called a lot of things, from "faggot" and "idiot" to evil genuis and a diplomat. He is an unusually complex hockey player. NHLers were polled and they called him the most hated hockey player in the NHL at the same time People magazine labelled Avery one of the sexiest men alive.

Last summer, when many mullet-wearing hockey players with gap-toothed smiles were gone fishing, Avery became a celebrity intern at Vogue magazine and wound up as guest editor at Men's Vogue.

A column he wrote like a diary about his experiences in the world of high fashion inspired a movie with New Line Cinema that is rumoured to be like a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada.

He is the subject of a new book called The Devils Wear Bauer (Not Prada) and is credited with turning the Rangers into New York City's newest Cinderella team. Hockey's favourite villain is the best story in the NHL this year and has become more famous than hockey superheroes Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin.

Crosby is considered the face of the NHL and Ovechkin is competing with him for the scoring championship, but Avery has crossed over from hockey into the worlds of fashion and Hollywood.

The goal of anger management is to reduce both your emotional feelings and the physiological arousal that anger causes. It is also the name of a popular 2003 movie starring Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler.

The new era of hope and change ushered in by President Barack Obama is being hit by a global financial meltdown that is overshadowing global warming and making many Americans as mad as hell. In periods like this, sports become more popular as a distraction. In times like these, we need sports more than ever.

Sean Avery was at a crossroads a few weeks ago but he faced the devils and returned from hockey limbo to lead the Hartford Wolf Pack of the AHL on a six-game winning streak and now he has rejoined the New York Rangers in the NHL just in time to spark them out of a midseason slump and turn them into New York City's best Cinderella story since the Giants won the Super Bowl in 2007.

The New York Rangers started the 2008/2009 season winning ten out of their first twelve games but went downhill after that. The lost 10 out of 12 games in the mid-season and dropped from first place in their division to a fight for the last playoff spot.

The Rangers are reminding people of the 1954 New York Giants who won the World Series, the 1969 New York Mets who went from worst to first and won the World Series, and the New York Jets who had a Cinderella season in 1969.
 
It's too soon to predict a Stanley Cup championship for the Rangers, but it is not too early to start thinking of them the way we thought of Team America at the time of the Miracle On Ice.

With a new coach and new players, the Rangers are re-energized as well as re-organized, and they have ended a serious skid, turned things around, and are headed in the right direction for a storybook finish to the regular season as well as a good run in the Stanley Cup playoffs.