Former Albany River Rat Sheldon Souray, now an All-Star defenseman for the Edmonton Oilers, once used to be a rather regular fighter in the AHL and early on with the New Jersey Devils. Now that he's got a huge shot from the blue line and the ability to score in bunches as a defenseman he doesn't drop the gloves quite so often.
Craig Weller of the Minnesota Wild is probably wishing he didn't mouth off so hard to Souray and likely also wishes that Ethan Moreau didn't get called off. Souray delivers a supremely one-sided destruction of Weller, one that even gets the trainer to hop on the ice to help Weller count the stars he's seeing.
Contact Hockey Joe
Want to send some grief along? How about some kudos? Is your name Gary Bettman and you want to send along a threatening e-mail?
Well don't worry, we've got you covered no matter what.
Hockey Joe is fan of old time hockey, at least if the kind they played in the 1980s counts at least. Hockey Joe is a guy who's fed up with watching the game he loves being handled and managed by folks with the intelligence equivalent to that of the common, everyday puck bunny.
Hockey Joe grew up with the National Champion RPI Engineers and the Calder Cup Champion Adirondack Red Wings - remember them? Guys like Gretzky, Messier, Lemieux, Yzerman and Sakic helped shape his idea of how the game was played and helped build up his wannabe old-man angst and can be found muttering to himself, often, "Why can't they play it like that anymore?" Clearly he's a got a problem and writing about hockey helps him work through his "issues."
If Hockey Joe had his way, he'd hop in Doc Brown's DeLorean to the day Gary Bettman was suggested by NBA Commissioner David Stern to take the NHL job and...well, this fantasy has gone too far already.
Working around the offices here at Radio Central even in spite of being easily the most hockey obsessed person in the building I can say that my insistence of talking about the game and stunning others with my garish collection of sweaters I like to think I've helped a few folks around the building rediscover their hockey fandom.
After all, what other major professional sport in this country can get folks to feel almost ashamed to be a fan of the game like hockey?
What kind of haul did he get? Here, check this out:
And no, the jersey isn't part of the package. The only thing that's missing here is an All-Star Game themed Rubik's Cube which my musically inclined colleague kept for himself.
This picture does serve to be a bit of a game however. You might be saying, "Wow that's awesome to get unannounced and unrequested free hockey-related stuff. Way to go NHL!"
Sure, that's extremely awesome, I'll never turn down free stuff from the NHL but I've got one huge issue with this package in particular.
I'm... Well, I'd like to say I'm stunned at how stupid this looks on behalf of the Major NHL Sponsor Company that provided this package as well as for the NHL who, obviously, supplied the free goodies.
I'm not surprised though.
Now you're probably thinking, "Well at least you got a pack of hockey cards out of it and had a chance at maybe getting a really great card."
After all, the pack promises "one Superstar Insert or Rookie Card in each pack."
That's awesome! Since it's a pack of cards from last year maybe I catch a break and get a Patrick Kane rookie card.
It's too bad I don't have a bicycle because these cards might come in handy for being a neighborhood nuisance. The Jordan Staal card was perhaps the one worth hanging on to, but I'm splitting hairs at this point.
It's incredible that the NHL does as well as it does by having a marketing plan as poorly executed as this.
After all, why would folks want to hear about the All-Star Game that's coming up soon in Montreal during the 100th Season of Montreal Canadiens hockey? The Canadiens are only one of the most storied franchises in all of professional sports and having them host the All-Star Game in their 100th season wouldn't be a big deal at all, right?
The NHL can really ruin just about anything it seems. They're like the clown that shows up for a kid's birthday all boozed up, swearing and inappropriately talking to the kid's mother in front of all the children while having one hand crammed down the front of his pants like Al Bundy.
This is completely embarrassing. Thanks Gary.
Animal Inspiration
Tuesday 01-13-2009 2:09pm ET
Our colleague over at Yahoo!, some might call him Puck Daddy, posted something today about how a pigeon managed to find its way to the ice in Chicago and other noted hockey bloggers in Chicago made the pigeon famous for coming to roost at center ice during the game.
Puck Daddy then asks for what folks may have seen that is stranger than a pigeon at center ice and, frankly, I think I've got a story to beat them all.
I know, you're saying: "Why don't you just go post it over there you jerk? We've seen you there! Just stay there already!"
I'm not going to just hand out a story like this especially since Wysh's commenters would rather make terrible Sidney Crosby/Penguins "jokes."
Let me take you back to my freshman year of college over in North Adams, Massachusetts. Yes, I can actually remember it so perhaps I didn't do my freshman duty to the fullest but on this November night, I was getting behind the microphone for my first broadcast as the color commentator for the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Mohawks.
On this night, MCLA was set to take on the next-door neighbor rivals from Williams College in Division III action. It was opening night for the Mohawks and starting off the season against the rival Ephs meant the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Rink was packed with rabid, boozed up MCLA students.
My broadcast partner for the evening, and for the better part of that season was Rich Pothier. I say "for the better part" because there were some nights when Rich could not do the games because his day/night job as a public safety officer on campus got in the way. Rich was the consummate pro and had been doing Mohawks games for quite some time, he was and always has been one of the finest play-by-play voices I've heard and his knowledge of team's past and their history proved to help me out a bit since here I was some punk 18 year-old getting his first crack at doing hockey on the radio.
I meet up with Rich at the Vietnam Vets Rink and he's got our remote equipment all set up and ready to go for us. I walk in and look up at center ice in the bleachers expecting us to be set up there. There's no table, no equipment...nothing.
"OK so where are we set up at," I ask Rich.
"Follow me, we've got the best/worst seats in the house."
I follow Rich to a ladder that's perched next to the entrance to the bathrooms in the corner of the rink. Rich heads up the ladder to where I see there's a cheap semi-wooden folding table set up on the landing above the bathrooms. I get the line sheets spread out on the table, we go over the names that might trip us up and figure out how we're going to pronounce the ones that seem tricky. It's go time in North Adams.
Rich bellows out the welcome to the distinctly tiny audience that might've tripped upon our 400-watt FM station on the dial.
"High above the men's room at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Ice Rink we bring you tonight's game between the MCLA Mohawks and the Williams College Ephs!"
This is surreal. Not just because I'm getting to do a game on the air but because we're perched above the freaking men's room!
With the game being between the state college punks (us) and the private college jerks (Williams) the ferocity of the jeers from our fans were quite...colorful. The fraternities piled into their sections all taking up with their sorority partners taking up half of the bleachers, the remainer of the seats taken up by friends and family of the players and freshmen new to the atmosphere.
One thing to take note of on this night was the added security at the doors to help confiscate contraband. No, not flasks of potable material or illicit snack foods but citrus. Part of the rivalry with Wiliams means celebrating the first home goal of the game scored by tossing oranges on the ice.
Despite MCLA's (formerly North Adams State College before that year) lack of success in recent seasons, the stands were full on this night and believe it or not, there was a palpable buzz to the game.
This buzz was likely sponsored by Natty Light or Busch Light, but that's besides the point.
The game kicks off and Rich's dulcet tones call out the action. The Mohawks are flying fast early on and Williams is clearly caught off guard. The Mohawks hem the Ephs in their own end and get one past the Williams goaltender as the Mohawks take the lead 1-0 to allow for the madness to begin.
Oranges - The Victory Fruit
The fans start going wild. Rich wraps up his goal call to allow me to analyze the scoring play as the oranges start flying out on to the ice.
Now at some point it went from polite tossing of cirtrus and became target practice for our more athletically inclined members of the student body as the oranges weren't just hitting the ice, they were hitting the officials and the players and with ill intent to top it off.
All through this chaotic scene which we've now taken to describing as best we can from our seat high above the men's room I notice something come out of the stands that is neither orange nor fruit.
In fact, it's brown, it's got legs and it appears to have antennae. Since I'm officially in New England at this point, I should've known what it was instantly but it took a minute to decipher what the object was. What I then noticed were the rubber bands on the creature.
This guy is not a fan of the home team.
A fan managed to sneak a live lobster into the game.
Not only did they get a live lobster into the game, they managed to keep it under wraps and then got lucky enough that MCLA scored within the first few minutes of the game to be able to toss the unlucky crustacean on the ice.
It didn't end there though.
Not only did this fan get a live lobster into the game, but their friend also got some seafood in as well. Right after we saw our friend above there skid across the ice but another lobster soon followed up and over the glass.
This lobster must have been tossed by someone with a background in shotput because this guy had some air under him. The lobster's claws, legs...everything tumbled through the air awkwardly headed for the center of the blue line and as he hit the ice he found that his experiment in flight would not end well.
The lobster hit just inside the zone, he was offside and the hockey gods punished him for it because once he hit the ice the lobster exploded all over the ice.
Now, I don't know anything about lobster anatomy and physiology but I can tell you that if you toss a lobster up high enough in the air and then get it to land a certain way on an ice surface that creature will seemingly disintegrate on contact with the ground.
The referees after seeing this brazen display of dangerous fruit and lobster/great dinner murder hit MCLA with a delay of game penalty. Williams scores on the ensuing power play and then continues to pile on the goals as they routed MCLA that night 8-1.
Not only was this my first game on the air, but it was my first taste of the hammer vs. nail rivalry that was MCLA (nail) vs. Williams (hammer) and it was also the first and last time I've ever seen lobsters on ice that weren't in a seafood market.
Original Six Revival
Friday 01-09-2009 5:22pm ET
I know there's a lot of newer NHL fans that might not realize it, since the modern NHL does a terrible job of paying homage to its own history, but there's a historic revival going on this season and it's one that will help restore some sanity to an otherwise ridiculous National Hockey League world.
This hockey reclamation project centers around the Original Six bouncing back in a big way. Over the last 15 years or so the Detroit Red Wings were the lone torch carrier for the league's most storied teams. The Red Wings have made the playoffs each year since the early 1990s, won the Stanley Cup four times meanwhile the other Original Six teams have not been keeping up their heritage end of the bargain.
Up until this season, the only other Original Sixers that were holding up at all were the Montreal Canadiens and the New York Rangers (that Cup win in 1994 still holds up even now). The Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs and Chicago Blackhawks spent more time in mediocrity than in success and in Chicago's case, it was nearly criminal what was happening to such a storied franchise and it took the death of owner Bill Wirtz to start righting the ship.
This season has brought about change in a big way. Detroit is still as good as they ever have been but they've been joined by the Bruins atop the NHL leaderboard and the Blackhawks in just two years have turned things around in a dramatic way finally giving the Red Wings some in-division competition. The Canadiens the last couple of seasons have seen their youth take charge allowing the Habs to rise once again and the Rangers ride atop the Atlantic Division on the back of goaltender Henrik Lundqvist.
OK sure, the Maple Leafs are still a bit rough around the edges, but that will change now that former Canucks and Ducks general manager (and American) Brian Burke heads the Maple Leafs rebuilding project.
The man in the middle of all the action last night from a Toronto standpoint is a former Canadien. A German-born Belarussian, Mikhail Grabobski was more than happy to play the man in the black hat against his old team. The 24 year-old centerman found himself mixing it up with his fellow Belarussians the Kostitsyn brothers and ultimately getting booed off the ice after all sorts of mayhem - get a look:
This is nothing new between these guys. OK sure the linesman tackling aspect and Grabovski shoving him and then doing his best Lou Piniella impression and then closing it out doing his best Tricky Dick impression was all new, but fighting with the Kostitsyn's?
That's old hat.
In fact, it's that sort of meatheadedness that got Grabovski sent out of town during the offseason in the first place. That's right, bitter Original Six rivals Montreal traded Grabovski to Toronto for a fifth round draft pick.
Why would Montreal trade a big, young kid centerman to their bitter, long-time rivals? The answer is rather fun. You see, it appears that Mr. Grabovski is a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
The Habs never had a problem with his talent; it was his antics that saw him dealt for a second rounder in the off-season. The expression "million-dollar hands and a 10-cent head" applies here.
Regardless, Habs forward Mikhail Grabovski decided to take his pre-pubescent career to new heights by keeping his two feet firmly planted on the ground. After having been scratched by coach Carbonneau in last night's game in Phoenix, Grabs decided to retaliate by, get this, refusing to take the team's flight to Los Angeles.
Grabs, you ignorant slut, why don't you take your 74 minutes of NHL experience, your babysitting agent and Muppet Babies pacifier and get ready for the Malakhov fan treatment the fans are going to give you when you get back to Montreal.
Habs coach Guy Carbonneau is a classic, old-school minded guy and crossing him by pouting about being scratched and then holding up the team flight? Wow. Nevermind the rumors about in-fighting with both Kostitsyn brothers (can't you Belarussians just get along?) and you've got yourself quite the brew for a mess.
Thank goodness the troublemaker now plays for the pain in the rear team that gives them fits each time they play.
Does the addition of Brad May to the Toronto lineup help stir things up in the locker room and get guys a little more, ahem, punchy? No doubt and Grabovski is the perfect pupil for Brian Burke and Brad May. Think of what the Anaheim Ducks Corey Perry is like. Now picture that sort of guy being an even bigger creep. Voila - you've got Mikhail Grabovski!
To say we've seen the last of these two teams looking to hit each other in the mouth and egging each other on would be quite stupid. This is a rivalry (remember those?) that's been going on since these teams started playing back in the early 1900s and for the last 10-20 years its been lying dormant, like a dangerous volcano looking for the right tremor to help set it free.
I am not a crook...I just get tackled by linesman while going after fellow countrymen.
I think this stack is about ready to blow and hockey needs classic rivalries like this to be reignited. Detroit and Chicago are poised to become hated rivals again, even in spite of things being in the current Hammer vs. Nail scenario with the Red Wings playing the role of the hammer.
Montreal and Boston renewed acquaintances in a big way in the playoffs last year and that meant big things for the city of Boston which has been understandably distant from the Bruins after countless years of bad management and terrible dealings.
Nevermind that its Montreal fans still buying more tickets than other visiting teams do in Boston, the TD Banknorth Garden is filled to the brim with a playoff atmosphere every time Montreal comes to visit. Things have changed a bit this season with the huge success the Bruins have had early on and the demand for Habs-B's tickets is huge in Boston no matter what.
It's not Yankees-Red Sox kind of hysteria, not yet anyways, but given how these teams did battle so fiercely through the 1970s and 1980s, old memories die hard and the Habs have tortured Bruins fans almost as equally as the Yankees have tortured the Sox over time. Almost.
These are the teams that need to assert themselves as the power players in the NHL and remind everyone who's boss. They need to remind Gary Bettman where his bread is buttered and that it's not Texas Toast.
Just How Smart Am I?
Wednesday 12-31-2008 5:11pm ET
Before the season started, I dazzled you all with my predictions of Five Teams That Could Pack It In Before It Started.
Yes, all words capitalized there was necessary, even if it's just in my head and if you want to read those predictions, feel free to scroll backwards in time here to read them. I'd link you to those individually if I could but... yeah, not happening here.
Taking a look at the standings as of today, it appears I've done... mostly decent.
Yeah, how do you like that for taking a stand?
Anyhow, I ended the seasons of the Florida Panthers, Los Angeles Kings, Atlanta Thrashers, New York Islanders and St. Louis Blues.
The Panthers and Kings are resistant to go along quietly.
The Kings currently have 36 points and sit all of THREE points out of the eighth spot in the Western Conference. Sure, you might overlook them in the conference listing, but the whole West is like this this season. No one is out of it (well, unless you're St. Louis) and one hot run puts you in the thick of things in the conference.
I will say that I had a caveat to my Kings prediction in that they were going to be very good very soon and that their defense and goaltending would hold them back this year.
Turns out that goaltending was the main problem given that the defense had tightened up and was playing very well. And now? The goaltending will improve with guys that are within their system.
Jonathan Quick and Erik Ersberg made life for incumbent terrible goaltender Jason LaBarbera so bad that yesterday they shipped him off to Vancouver (for a seventh round draft pick) where LaBarbera is the stop-gap goalie while both Curtis Sanford and Roberto Luongo are out with injuries.
As for the Florida Panthers they've got 37 points and sit in 10th place in the East just two points back of Buffalo and division-mate Carolina for the eighth playoff position. I'm a bit thrilled that Florida is doing better than expected, even if it makes me seem like an Internet blowhard at the moment.
New coach Pete DeBoer has changed things up in South Florida and that's a good thing. Anything that keeps Jay Bouwmeester from demanding to be sent packing also works pretty well for me since, hey, that prolongs some drama for the trade deadline that doesn't involve anyone in Ottawa.
What's most incredible is how Florida has been doing it. Their leading scorer is the enigmatic Stephen Weiss and he's got 20 points. Goaltending is the thing for the Panthers and they've been getting it very well in equal parts from Thomas Vokoun and the best backup in the business Craig Anderson. Look at their numbers this year:
Thomas Vokoun 8-11-1 2.78 .917 Craig Anderson 8-4-4 2.26 .936
These numbers are stunning and the sole reason why the Panthers are doing as well as they are. Of course, with that, there's the latest news there that the Panthers have dropped their last four games and the goaltending has faltered in each loss.
Not good. Perhaps this mid-season check in is the reminder the Panthers needed that they too should fall back to the pack. Perhaps, yes, I do flex that kind of power. Chew on that NHL.
A better reason for the added success of the Panthers is likely thanks to their in-state rivals the Lightning being so bad. Picking up a few extra wins against the 'Ning has helped boost Florida's numbers (2-0-1 so far this year).
I insist upon a full mea culpa in regard to the Tampa Bay Lightning because while I didn't think they'd be world beaters or even sort of mostly good, I didn't think they would turn out to be this bad and in this much disarray.
I was all for supporting the new owners Oren Koules and Len Barrie with their wild spending ways and trying to jazz things up, but rather than them being more like the Steinbrenners they've been more like Dan Snyder - lots of cash for lots of familiar names with the headlines to boot and zero results and unlike the Washington Redskins, the fans have stayed away in Tampa.
Considering that Tampa was the one franchise in the south that had the fans continuing to show up after the Stanley Cup win and the lockout, making everyone run for cover has been devastating for the standing of that team in an area that is quite fickle about when and where to show up for its teams, just ask the Tampa Bay Rays.
A team that has surprised me with how poor they've looked so quickly are the Ottawa Senators. Sure, they didn't do much to add to the team in free agency and their goaltending both went crazy and off to Russia (Hi Ray Emery) and then followed that departure up with signing a guy who is better in spot duty than as a starter (Alex Auld) all while having a guy who has yet to shake the monkey off his back that he's worth his weight in goal (Martin Gerber).
Ottawa media is eager to get Jason Spezza traded to anyone to get pieces to rebuild the team and any mistakes at all that Spezza makes are magnified due to the ever-watchful eye of the Canadian media. Problem with dealing Spezza is that they'd have to get a solid centerman in return and, really, how often do you see one big gun dealt away for another one?
The thing to keep an eye on from here out is who is lurking in the weeds of the lower reaches of the standings that is itching to come out and be a pain in the rear come playoff time? For that sort of thing, look West, and look in two particular places in Dallas and in Edmonton.
Dallas' issues have both been in goal and apparently off the ice, as I've talked about a bit too much here, but Marty Turco is playing infinitely better and word is he may have been injured the first part of this season. If that's the case, sign me up big time on the Dallas comeback bandwagon because this team goes as Turco does and if he's on top of things coach Dave Tippett's system will be able to work much better. Also consider that Dallas is getting production from a lot of their youth who have been pressed into action due to injury (namely James Neal who has notched double-digit goals already this year) and you've got a team that is making it work in the face of adversity, and not just adversity caused by a me-first agitator diva.
Meanwhile, in Edmonton, they've got the benefit of playing in a division that no one seems to want to win and they've fired up the Rejuvinator for goaltender Dwayne Roloson to get solid work out of him.
Problem in Edmonton has been lack of forward production. Promising second-year man Sam Gagner has been mostly invisible this year (3-7-10 in 32 games) and the one guy who has been scoring in bunches, Ales Hemsky, is now injured. That means of the remaining top scorers in their lineup, two of them are defensemen. Not good.
Edmonton has to get more out of their guys up front and if that happens, this will be a very dangerous team to deal with.
Please keep in mind that no one is really out of the playoff hunt in the West, the bottom half of the playoff ladder there is open for the taking and whoever is hottest at the end of the year will play the double role of team to watch and fast riser. Any GMs out West that are counting themselves out of it right now should be fired.
Unless you're in St. Louis. You guys can feel free to pack it in now.
A Visit with Paul Wieland from the Buffalo Sabres
Monday 12-22-2008 2:04pm ET
Paul Wieland is just the kind of guy I was looking forward to talking to. He's got a new book out titled Then Perreault Said To Rico: The Best Buffalo Sabres Stories Ever Told and it was a throwback to hear stories about how it was to be a part of a true expansion team as the Sabres got their start in the NHL in 1970 and about how a lucky spin of the wheel helped get the famous French Connection started with the greatest forward in Sabres history Gilbert Perreault.
Nevermind that Paul is a guy after my own hockey heart being critical of how the game was played in the late 1990s and how he's not a fan of the shootout today.
I had the chance to speak with Paul about his days working with the likes of legendary coaches Punch Imlach and Scotty Bowman, legendary players Gilbert Perreault, Rick Martin and Rene Robert and even more legendary broadcaster Rick Jeanneret as well as picking his brain about what it is the league isn't doing right and the surprising ways he'd like to see the NHL go to make the game more exciting.
If you're a fan of old time hockey stories I certainly suggest picking this book up as it reads like a collection of quick-fire anecdotes like you'd hear from the guys and never fails to entertain.
And just in case you might not remember who Rick Jeanneret is, this is why I'm here for you with TSN's Countdown of his Top Ten Calls. Just awesome. A heads up to Bruins fans, you may not want to wait around to see what the Number One is.
The Stars have announced that Avery will not rejoin the team this season. That's right, a mere three months into a four-year, $15.5 million dollar contract, the Stars have decided that the team cannot continue on with him on the roster. For the record, all of that money is guaranteed. Nice work Dallas.
So, what now? Can Dallas find a way to get around paying him? Probably not, at the least, they'd have to buy him out of his deal at two-thirds of the value but they can't do that until the summer.
Talk about a hard way to spend $8 million dollars.
The problem here for Dallas, as James Mirtle pointed out over the weekend, Dallas doesn't have a lot of good things going for it this season and Avery is actually one of the guys who was producing for them. Dallas also has other troubles as far as getting back into the race for the playoffs in the West. Info from Mirtle:
Avery may have been a distration, but Dallas' major problems consist of (a) bad goaltending and (b) the worst special teams in the league (where Avery isn't a major contributer). The Stars are ranked dead last in team save percentage (.878), tied for 29th on the power play and 28th at killing penalties.
They're going to improve over the remainder of the season, no question, but Dallas needs a record of 34-18-1 — a 107-point pace — to hit 95 points this season.
That's not going to happen.
Since the NHL has the points welfare system in place awarding points for reaching overtime, even locking down 90 points doesn't guarantee you a playoff spot, just look at the standings from last year.
Dallas needs Avery to stay respectable in the standings but problems behind the scenes continue to be alluded to as the reason why he's not coming back.
Jagr's insights tell us a lot more than the hand-wringing comments that have been made by the Stars front office or any of the blithering idiot talking heads have pointed out. What Jagr does say, however, might help exonerate Brett Hull from being the man in Dallas to face the axe for getting Avery there in the first place.
"I don't think he will be kicked out of the NHL because of the ethics standards. Not everyone there is such goody two-shoes. I would believe that the club is not happy with Avery's play and now stumbled upon a great chance to part ways.
"But you have to know Sean. Yes, he is a bad boy. But this is his image. It is all acting. In his soul he is a vulnerable and sentimental person. And Avery also loves confrontations and trouble. He likes to draw attention to himself. That's his life. Sean should have become an actor. He would have had a great career in Hollywood.
"But he is a good player. Believe me. He has speed, sense of the game, sees the net well - he has everything. In some games Avery was Rangers' best player. If he is trusted by the team he always plays well.
"And he always comes up with something. I remember once we were playing the Devils, when Avery stood in front of their goaltender Martin Brodeur and started swinging his stick. He was not breaking any rules, but Martin got really mad. Sean achieved what he wanted, he unsettled an opposing player.
"I think Sean needs a strong coach like Mike Keenan. To have him under control. Then a lot of scandals could have been avoided.
"Actually, people with a big self opinion will never understand Avery and will always think of him as an outsider. But I can never take Sean seriously. I have never had any problems with him."
If you take everything out of that statement referring to Sean Avery, it sounds to me that Jagr is describing the ideal agitator on any hockey team, in this case one with a flair for the dramatic. These are the words coming from a teammate for two years. Then again, Jagr was also asked about whether he'd like to have Avery come join him in the KHL playing for Avangard Omsk and said:
"No!" Jagr started waiving his hands and almost fell from his chair laughing. "Two years playing together for the Rangers was enough. Couldn't you come up with a lighter sentence?"
Well, OK so that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. What is enlightening here is how candid Jagr is speaking about things, and not just with Avery but also his thoughts on the NHL and its economic system.
Sean Avery does his best impersonation of a member of the Lollipop Guild
What's the point here? Dallas has completely overblown this entire situation. They blew it from the beginning by not realizing what they were getting in Avery. Obviously they've not been paying attention through his entire career.
They missed out when Avery was sat down by the Kings for being too much of a pain in the rear. They missed out when Avery was getting reprimanded for his comments about French-Canadian players wearing visors. They apparently missed all of this. Free agency is always buyer beware especially when the player available has a laundry list of prior offenses and seems to find his way to new teams after a year or two.
Coincidence? Not a chance, and Dallas management had to know this. Brett Hull knew it but figured that Avery would spark the Stars and he'd straighten up and fly right playing for him after he stuck his neck out for Avery. Wrong. Hull might not pay for this mistake with his job but it's really shameful to watch all the suits in Dallas play the "woe is me" card in regard to Avery's actions and conduct.
Give it a break boys, you knew he was more than capable of being abrasive towards everyone under the sun and hell, that's what you're paying him to do in the first place. Feigning ignorance plays us all for fools - and right now, it looks like the only fools are the ones in the Stars administration.
© 2012
