Touching on Everything and Anything

Friday, February 6, 2009

Sean Avery may be making his return to the Rangers

Former Ranger Sean Avery was recently suspended by the league after his disparaging comments about his ex-girlfriend who was dating an oposing player. His quote was, "And I just want to comment on how it's become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds. I don't know what that's about." After his suspension his team, the Stars, said that they had no interest in having him return to the team based on the way that he "was not smart enough to play in their system" and the fact that his teammates hated him.
Avery has been attending anger management training and is almost through the program that he has been participating in since mid-January. Avery is not the first to attend anger management as I can also recall Ozzie Guillen, manager of the White Sox, attending counseling after his comments calling a reporter a 'fag'. I am not sure how affective this anger management is on some of these people who are involved in sports. Those who seem to make off color comments seem to make them continuously as opposed to changing their attitudes after their management sessions.
Just because Avery has a brash personality does not mean that I would be totally against having him back on the Rangers. He is a main part of what the Rangers are missing right now and that piece is an agitator. The Rangers have the stars on their team but they are lacking the gritty fighter who can get under the skin of an opponent. Since Avery was so brash last year while on the ice for the Rangers I am a little concerned that his counseling may have modified this kind of attitude making him a different kind of player than we have seen in the past.
What I want is the Sean Avery who is able to agitate while on the ice but then be able to seperate that behavior from what he says to reporters. On the ice I want him to be an absolute jerk to the other team but then be able to turn it off when the final whistle blows. Is this possible? I am not sure but, I really hope so because I would love to have him back in that kind of role.

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