Stay Classy, Dallas

December 3, 2008 · Posted in Entertainment, Personal Blogs, Sports, Topic Blogs 

And I mean it. I’m not being sarcastic this time.  This particular classiness I’m referencing is that of the Dallas Stars.

If you watch ESPN SportsCenter or follow the sites that aggregate funny items of the day, then no doubt you’ve heard the brilliance that is Sean Avery. From Wikipedia: Avery’s success in his job role of distracting other players has arguably made him one of the most hated players in the league.

Before yesterday’s game in the locker room, Avery decided he was going to spout out a little more of his brilliance and gathered the reporters to make sure they caught every moment of his audio genius.  Allow me a little bit of a backgrounder: Avery used to date Elisha Cuthbert (AKA 24’s Kim Bauer) who now dates Calgary Flames Defenseman Dion Phaneuf. (Dallas played Calgary yesterday)

Ok, so we’re caught up and ready to hear Avery’s pearls of wisdom: “I’m really happy to be back in Calgary, I love Canada and I just wanted to comment on how it’s become a common thing for guys in the NHL to fall in love with my sloppy seconds, I don’t know what that’s about.”

For that, the NHL Commissioner suspended Avery, indefinitely. And for the first time in my sports history memory, his teammates and team management, were not squarely behind the player. Usually when a player is suspended a team will at least go through the motions of an appeal, or even just speak out against the league’s decision to suspend.  Not in this case. If you watched the above video, you see his teammates and management totally laying out on him. If he thought he’d get support for that one, he got crickets. I LOVE what Tom Hicks, the Stars owner said  – (paraphrasing) “If the NHL didn’t suspend him for that, we were going to”.

Since he’s arrived in Dallas, his teammates have had to deal with this prima donna.  They went to the playoffs last year, and this year they can hardly manage to show up for a game.  From what I understand, the Dallas Stars as a team went to great lengths to create a classy, all-for-the-team mentality with players who truly enjoyed each other and loved being on the ice.  Then this guy comes in, acts like God’s gift to the game of hockey and spouts his mouth off about everything, making the locker room atmosphere uncomfortable and dreaded. The team-family mentality was fractured when Sean Avery skated in on his golden blades.

Yes, I agree with what you’re thinking – hockey players say a heck of a lot worse things to each other during the game. However, that’s on the ice – while the game is on. This was an off-the-ice intentional insult that just went to far. I personally am all about talking trash and trying to throw the other team off, but this is not an isolated event.

The way the players verbalized their disappointment with not only this comment, but him in general showed great class in my opinion. They made sure fans know that they do not support his actions and comments, and moreover they are done with it.

He’ll be back after he’s been in the box for awhile. He has to be – he’s got a 4 year contract (making more money that Modano, by the way). I hope they can find a way to cut him loose so the Stars can go back to being themselves again, but I’m not counting on it.

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