This one here puts the entire Italian national soccer team to shame. Just indicative of how much respect Avery has for the game in general

Obviously you don’t watch much hockey yourself. He made a comment about Jason Blake’s cancer and tried to fight in the pre-game warmup. He called Anson Carter a monkey. He chirps and irritates players he has no intention of fighting, and when any player bigger then him challenges him he looks to the ref for help. He dives. His “sloppy seconds” comment was pathetically orchestrated and was obviously not your run-of-the-mill foul mouth comment as you suggest because it got him kicked off the Stars. He flipped off the NY media during a practice. He doesn’t play the game the right way. He IS a disgrace and if you don’t think so you haven’t been following his career for very long (that’s my guess seeing as you could only name off 2 recent and highly publicized incidents)

1. What Avery did was not illegal at the time. You might not like it, but it was a VALID tactic that got Brodeur off his game… quite possibly helping score the goal later in the play. In fact, it could be said the league acted Bushleague by making up a rule over night to take care of it… adding a rule in the middle of the playoffs? Thats the only disgraceful thing I saw during the whole thing.

2. His own teammate was not yelling at him to get back in the play. He was warning him that the ref was watching him, and that he might get a penelty for what he was doing.

3. A lot of people get arrested for doing dumb things when they are drunk. I don’t think I would go out and call them retarded…. and I certainly would never try to link said arrest to their on-ice playstyle, especially when said person is suppose to be a stand-up guy off the ice.

4. Most of the Rangers don’t actually hate Avery. No idea where you got that from… it was his Dallas teammates who Avery never meshed with, likely because they had to play against him for years. Thats the problem with playing the role as pest, but that IS Avery’s role to play.

5. Torts and Avery have had problems yes, but Torts also says Avery can be an extremely effective player so long as he doesn’t take dumb penelties…. something that can be said about a lot of NHL players.

6. Most hockey fans hate his guts because he plays against their teams. You guys hate Avery because hes a pest… not for any practicle reason other then that. Its not like hes a Matt Cooke type player who goes out trying to hurt people all the time or anything. You don’t like him because hes a pain in the ass, but an effective pain in the ass. The fact that you hate him means hes doing his job.

7. I doubt you really know hockey… and playing Men’s D league hockey doesn’t make you an expert. Once you have played semi-pro level hockey (or higher) come back and we can talk some more.

Oh, and what has Avery done to be considered “a disgrace to the game”? He waved his stick in front of Marty Brodeur… a play that was not illegal at the time, and resulted in a goal. Thats not defending Avery, thats stateing the FACTS. He helped his team win a critical game…. its really hard to call that disgraceful, especially when he didn’t break any rules doing it. Oh, and he made a distasteful off-ice comment about his ex-girlfirend. Big woop, that just means he has a foul mouth…. something the vast majority of hockey players are guilty off.

Besides those two incidents, what makes him a disgrace? Because hes an effective pest, and you hate him? Sorry, thats a really low standard.

Ok, you are a Ranger fan. You should have no say in this whatsoever. Do you even play hockey? Because if you do, you must suck! Sean had his back to the play for about 45 seconds of a PP. Even his own teamates were yelling at him to get back into the play. Yes he scored and it was a nice goal, but the precurser to the goal was both childish and dumb. It was something you see when you are a cherrypicker playing street hockey when your 6, not at the professional NHL level.

This arrest just proves how retarded he is. His teamates hate him, Torts cannot stand him, and most real hockey fans hate his guts. It’s so funny to see someone like you, a Ranger fan, defending his antics. Go pretend it’s 1994 somewhere else and don’t comment unless what you say is relevant and/or inteligent. Thanks.

-Someone who actually knows about hockey

My point is that this columnist is being far too objective simply because Sean Avery has done some other dumb things in his career and his beloved Devils were the victims of Averys genius.

Get over it pal. Until you play a single minute in the NHL and realize how difficult goals can be to score, especially in the post season, stop whining and respect a good hockey play.