Everybody hates Sean
He’s irked francophones, been hunted down by angry opponents and told to shut up by his team L.A. Kings superpest Sean Avery also happens to be a pretty good hockey player, by Mark Zwolinski
For Sean Avery, talk is no longer cheap. The Los Angeles Kings forward has not spoken to the media in the past four days. His media victims are piling up like empties at a Christmas party, including over a dozen locals yesterday who got the brushoff from the NHL’s most famous mouth of 2005.
According to Kings coach Andy Murray, the club has had a little talk with the bombastic superpest.
It had a lot to do with the fines, francophone player- bashing, alleged racial slurs, NHLPA bashing, and other verbal hellfire that has made for great headlines over the past two months.
“We’ve talked to him about that,” Murray said after Kings practice yesterday.
“ We want to make sure his actions do the talking for him.”
Avery has likely set a record of sorts for him — the longest period without a zinger quote. Love him or hate him, and there are plenty of players around the NHL in the latter group, he enters tonight’s contest against the Leafs as one of the most talked- about players in the league.
“ You have to give ‘ Aves’ credit, he’s tough, he goes out and backs it up, he fights. . . . He can’t fight everyone and everyone wants to fight him,” Kings forward Craig Conroy said.
Avery discovered how much ire he raises in peers after he allegedly called Edmonton’s George Laraque, who is black, a monkey.
After the game, the entire Oilers roster went on an Avery hunt, scrambling through the lower hallways at the Rexall Centre to get at him.
According to those who witnessed it, the Oilers were beyond words; they wanted a group beating. Such response is typical for Avery these days. He played in Montreal Saturday, his first appearance in Quebec since his anti-French player comments in October, and faced deafening jeers from the fans. One fan even threw a teddy bear wrapped in a Quebec flag at him as he sat on the bench. The Kings, while unofficially putting a muzzle on their talented winger, also went to the lengths of bringing an NHL security representative and their top media handler on this fourgame road trip that wraps up against the Leafs tonight.
“ They ( Kings public relations staff) don’t let him watch TV and they don’t want him to read the papers,” a source close to the team said. Why can’t Avery just shut himself up?
In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, he said, only half seriously, that he may have been dropped on his head as a baby.
“ There’s some wires crossed up there,” he said. Some observers say the career agitator felt a little left out when megastar Jeremy Roenick arrived from Philadelphia this season. Avery reportedly sat in the locker room, almost invisible to a west coast media looking for hockey stories in the post- lockout NHL. No one talked to him. A week into the season, a TSN camera crew finally set up in front of him. The next thing anyone knew, Avery was stereotyping Francophone players in his response to what he felt was a dirty hit on Roenick by Phoenix Coyotes defenceman Denis Gauthier. Kings coach Andy Murray wants to nip the snowballing
media reaction
to Avery.
“ The thing
that gets lost in
this whole
equation is
that Sean Avery is a good hockey player,” Murray said.
Avery has four goals, six assists, and a team- leading 59 penalty minutes in 19 games so far this season.
“ What we want people to understand is that the act is behind him. Now, the league will have to look at him in a different way, he’s changed, he’s not running goalies, it’s not the way it’s being portrayed.”
While Avery was — and is — getting under the skin of opponents, no one was complaining about his celebrity. A distraction? Kings players beg to differ.
“ It’s a distraction at times, yes, but it’s a good distraction,” Conroy said. Conroy and his teammates learned yesterday that back in Los Angeles, there are photos of the infamous paparazzi — the photo legions that usually hound movie stars — aiming their cameras at Avery.
“ The paparazzi . . . oh no, Sean’s head is going to get too big after this, we’ll never hear the end of it,” Conroy said, laughing.