You know something; a few weeks away from the game will be good for Sean Avery. The time he spends in counseling with NHLPA/NHL Behavioral Health Program physicians will be constructive.
The more he learns about himself, the more he is willing to confront the underlying personal issues that spawn the behavior that has turned him into a hockey pariah, the healthier and more at peace with himself Avery will be.
In this case, perhaps despite himself but perhaps as intended, Gary Bettman has done Avery a favor by suspending him for six games for his sexually suggestive and totally uncool public reference to Elisha Cuthbert in Calgary on Tuesday.
Perhaps Bettman, who had issued an official warning — a last official warning, to be more accurate — to Avery last spring after the then-Rangers winger made an obscene gesture to a local TV camera taping practice two days after the Martin Brodeur face-guarding incident, took it upon himself to conduct an intervention.
If so, then the commissioner has acted in a constructive manner. Avery has told friends that he has no objection to the discipline imposed by the commissioner and that, in fact, he does not want the NHLPA to file a grievance on his behalf.
Beyond that, Avery is said to be in a positive frame of mind, both ready and eager to tackle the future.
Avery has acted as an adult here. Bettman has acted as an adult, here, too, though the commissioner did get carried away with the Think Of The Children reference he inserted into the press release announcing the suspension.
“If you’re a parent trying to explain this to a child, it’s easier to say it’s unacceptable when you know the league has made clear that it’s unacceptable,” Bettman said.
Children who ask why fighting is unacceptable when fighting is acceptable in the NHL? Those children?
The segment of the population that does not identify themselves as “hockey people” by and large believe that disciplining Avery for saying something offensive but not even offensive enough to be censored while replayed repeatedly on television and radio, is absolutely ludicrous.
I think so, too.
But I also believe this suspension will be prove to be both a life-saver and a career-saver for Avery. On this day, taking care of the person trumps taking care of the principle.