Give a second to think of a sloppy statement

Sean Avery. There, the unique visits just shot up 125 per cent. It’s a sloppy way to get the hits up, but when you’re second like us you have to try harder. We were going to fill this spot up with another indignant response to Avery’s sloppy attempt at smack talk today. He’s always played second fiddle to the league’s better players in that department.

However, on second thought we decided that we just couldn’t bring ourselves to print what he said. It would be sloppy journalism. And since we aren’t going to do that we had best not comment. After all, without the benefit of providing the full statement to provide full context people’s might start to base their opinion on Avery on assumptions of what he said, rather than what was actually said. But, we would never be so sloppy as to print the words that came out of his mouth. As reporters, we are beyond talking in such a way and the purity of our industry would suffer. Of that, there can be no second guesses.

So, you’ll have to go elsewhere to learn what he said. Maybe one of those sloppy blogs that are always second best.

* OK, so he’s a sophomoric and possibly misogynistic twit. We get that. It’s unfair that he makes millions of dollars to play hockey and gets to date women that could appear on the cover of Maxim. Life is unjust that way. But, for the NHL, a league that justifies Todd Bertuzzi’s mugging of Steve Moore, suspending Sean Avery indefinitely for saying “I am really happy to be back in Calgary, I love Canada. 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. Enjoy the game tonight..." Give me a break. Have you been in a hockey dressing room? Avery is being suspended because he doesn’t play by the rules of some screwed-up code. If, say, Brenden Morrow, that good Saskatchewan boy, had said it you can bet that every “insider” this side of Red Deer would be lining up to say “Yes, he shouldn’t have said it. But, boys will be boys. Weren’t you young once.”

Related:
Where are the NHL’s priorities? (Kukla's Korner)