It is one thing to be charged with a crime and quite another to be guilty of it, but this much is clear: Sean Avery most certainly did not need Laurel Canyon on Friday night, whatever it was that actually occurred when the police came knocking on his door.
This isn’t about Avery’s standing on the Rangers, which is no more or less tenuous now than it has been throughout the offseason, and this isn’t even about Avery’s standing within the NHL, a league that historically has differentiated between conduct in and out of the arena when it comes to crime and punishment.
But being arrested for battery on a police officer, even if the charge is dismissed along the way, does not help Avery be taken seriously as a social progressive, and it does not make it any more likely he will be called upon to lobby legislators on behalf of issues about which he cares deeply and for which he has been an effective advocate.
It has been reported that Avery is in trouble again as if this is somehow routine, though really this is the first time there ever has been trouble remotely like this. It had better be the last.
Because though Avery is being represented in court by Blair Berk, a high-profile attorney who has represented miscreants such as Lindsay Lohan and Mel Gibson, the world in which No. 16 lives in New York isn’t quite so forgiving of front-page transgressions involving the police and the coach for whom he plays — or doesn’t — isn’t so forgiving at all.
Avery has spoken with both Garden CEO Jim Dolan and Rangers president/general manager Glen Sather. One supposes Avery has apologized privately to the two men who, truth be told, are the reason he has a job in New York, which is to say are the reason he has a job in the NHL.
And though Avery’s first obligation here is to follow the advice of his counsel, public acknowledgement of regret is in order, so long as it is sincere. Avery is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty, and he has not been charged with a capital offense, that much is understood. Yet that doesn’t mean this episode hasn’t embarrassed the Rangers organization, because it has, and Avery must recognize that.
Physicians and counselors in the NHL/NHLPA Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program will speak with Avery as a matter of course — don’t misunderstand; this is a behavioral health issue, not a drug or alcohol-related one — and not simply because the 31-year-old athlete previously received counseling within the program for anger management during the winter of 2008-09 as mandated by commissioner Gary Bettman.
Deputy commissioner Bill Daly has told numerous news outlets, including The Post, that the league is reserving judgment while monitoring the situation as it applies to possible league-applied sanctions, but the NHL has almost never imposed suspensions for acts away from the arena other than for drug-related offenses.
Ed Belfour was not suspended in 2000 after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge following an arrest for assaulting a police officer in Dallas. Dany Heatley was not suspended after pleading guilty to four misdemeanor charges, including second-degree vehicular homicide, relating to the September 2003 car crash in which Atlanta teammate Dan Snyder was killed.
So this is not about supplementary discipline, even considering Avery’s unprecedented six-game (that turned into three-month) exile from the NHL for uttering bad words into a camera in a locker room in Calgary in 2008 that prompted an unforgettable diatribe from an analyst on TSN who now happens to be the Rangers’ coach. And this is not about discipline on the ice or about Avery being a distraction. Harm has been done here, not to the Rangers or the NHL necessarily, but to Avery, and it’s self-inflicted. This has reinforced the caricature of Avery as he is so often portrayed.
Causes Avery believes in will have a more difficult time calling on him to be a spokesperson. It’s one thing to be a bad boy in Hollywood, another to be one in Albany, if not on Warren Street. Avery has a place on the Rangers as long as he can contribute. But there is no excuse for what happened in Laurel Canyon on Friday night, whether it was criminal or not.
No excuse at all.