Sean Avery Will Clearly Outlast The NHL

Current Dallas Stars center Sean Avery is:

1.)    Probably an asshole
2.)    Way more interesting than anything else going on in the NHL

As reported on Canada.com (where else would one go to read about a hockey player?), Avery has been suspended indefinitely for making comments about Calgary Flames defenseman Dion Phaneuf, who is currently dating Avery’s ex-girlfriend, actress Elisha Cuthbert. Avery spoke at a press conference prior to the Stars-Flames game Tuesday night, delivering a brief oratory:

“Uh, I’m 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.”

Some thoughts:

• “I love Canada,” is a hilarious sentence to utter, regardless of the words on either side of it.
• Ending a statement that you know to be obnoxious by welcoming the press to “Enjoy the game tonight,” is a perfect asshole move.
• Elisha Cuthburt, who played the high-school girl who had sex with Luke Wilson’s Mitch in Old School, is apparently the Alyssa Milano of hockey.
• Accusing another dude of “sloppy seconds” is unbelievably (read: “hilariously”) juvenile. Are these dudes in 10th grade?
• Taking a dissection of rhetoric class my senior year of college is finally coming in handy.

Avery is also the guy who famously interned at Vogue magazine last summer, partially as a joke, but also because he is genuinely interested in women’s fashion, stating that he would like to parlay his internship into a career in women’s fashion writing after he retires from hockey (or the league folds, obviously; whatever comes first). Additionally, Avery is also a total goon, routinely leading or nearly leading the league in penalty minutes, despite his comparatively small stature (5’11, 195). Such a dick is Avery that “The Sean Avery Rule” refers to the unwritten rule that players are not supposed go out of their way to distract the opposing team’s goaltender, a tactic that apparently only Avery is willing to employ. In a poll of 283 NHL players taken in 2007, 66.4% said that Avery was the most hated player in the league.

Avery’s awesomeness has been identified as potentially profitable by New Line Cinema, which has commissioned a screenplay based on his life, according to an article in Newsweek.