Butch_Stearns's Blog

On Sunday night in New York during game three of their playoff series, New York Rangers left wing Sean Avery acted like an idiot and the NHL is doing something about it.

During a 5-on-3 power play in New Jersey's 4-3 overtime playoff victory Sunday night, Avery planted himself in the crease and faceguarded Brodeur. Holding his stick upward, Avery waved it side to side to block Brodeur's vision in a newfangled method of screening. Brodeur gave him a whack, but that was hardly a deterrent. "I've played for 15 years in this league. I've been watching games for 33 years. I had never seen that in my life," Brodeur said. "I don't think that kind of behavior should be done in front of the net, but there is no rule for it."

Well now there is. On Monday, the NHL acted swiftly and issued this amendment to an existing rule. "An unsportsmanlike conduct minor penalty will be interpreted and applied, effective immediately, to a situation when an offensive player positions himself facing the opposition goaltender and engages in actions such as waving his arms or stick in front of the goaltender's face, for the purpose of improperly interfering with and/or distracting the goaltender as opposed to positioning himself to try to make a play," Colin Campbell, the NHL director of hockey operations, said in a statement.

Sean Avery looked like and acted like an idiot. But we have come to expect idiotic things from this guy. According to Wikipedia, here are a few of Avery's incidents from over the years.

Denis Gauthier of the Phoenix coyotes body-checked Kings forward Jeremy Roenick in a 2005 pre-season game, giving Roenick a concussion. Avery's response was "I think it was typical of most French guys in our league with a visor on, running around and playing tough and not back anything up," generating much controversy with the French-Canadian public. Avery also made news during the regular season when Georges Laraque of the Edmonton Oilers , a Black Canadian, claimed that Avery called him a "monkey" during an October 11, 2005 contest between the two teams. The incident was never proven and Avery adamantly denies it ever occurred. Avery was fined $1,000 by the NHL on November 15 2005 for intentionally diving during a game, then was fined $1,000 more a day later after publicly criticizing the NHL's director of hockey operations, Colin Campbell.

So this guy clearly doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt and now in a playoff hockey game he resorts to something the Hansen Brothers would have done in the movie Slapshot. Defend that.

Butch