Originally Posted by Dutch

true, but what I meant was if Don Cherry loves him in the ways he loves 4th liners who never will be a factor in the NHL, plenty more people would love him. Guess that point didn't come across the way it should have

Originally Posted by Dutch

Everyone would love to have the Avery's of the NHL on their team.

Originally Posted by mister_mcgoo

yeah you're right Dobber, screw the 'code', screw the old way of thinking, wtf use is 93 years of tradition anyway? Fück yeah, lets make this league more exciting so we can get a big TV contract!...out with the old and in with the new, lets really shake some things up....like:

1)put the shootout in the playoffs too! That's way more exciting than watching 60 mins of OT for sure...
2)having 3 periods is dumb, everyone else has halves or quarters, lets break it into two 30 mins halves so we can roll out a big stage at halftime for Justin Bieber to sing some bull$hit, he's just dreamy
3)lets continue to wussify the game like they have with football so that all contact results in a penalty...we really gotta protect the goalies more too, I think its an automatic 5 min major if you so much as sneeze on a goalie, even if he's out of the net.
4)speaking of the NFL, lets encourage all the players in the NHL to behave like spoiled little self-absorbed shitheads too. There's no 'I' in TEAM but there's definitely a big ME ME ME!
5)oooooo, speaking of ME ME ME, lets find a way to make it less of a team game and more individualistic, like maybe a skills competition at halftime that focuses on fastest skater or hardest shot or something where you can earn extra pts. Oh I know!, we could have a cage match fight on ice maybe! Yeah that'd be hella sweet.
6)lets make talent and skill take a back seat to on-ice theatrics and antics, because lets face it, drama sells...hockey is boring, we need to spice it up with some soap opera-like shenanigans, maybe take some tips from the WWF where they all have different allegiances and feuds and trash talk during interviews and stuff, fück yeah! I'd love to see Avery talking trash to Pronger at halftime then match em up in a cage match, that would be just awesome
7)speaking of drama, everyone loves to see blood so lets make cheap shots the norm. Players should be encouraged to hurt each other, that really fuels the whole drama angle too and will really sell tickets
8)we need more T&A, those ice sluts that we have cleaning the ice now need to be involved in the actual game somehow, like maybe we change the rules around so that its like a capture the flag type scenario, except we make it 'capture the babe'...oh and we need them much more scantily clad, sex sells afterall

Originally Posted by PrairieDog

Sorry Dobber, I can't agree with you here at all. It has nothing to do with some 'unwritten code.'

True, some of the things he does are actually quite creative and DO make me kind of laugh - the Brodeur thing is a good example. But he so many other things that cross the line that I can't respect or like him.

If he were the kind of guy that agitated and then answered the bell when someone dropped the gloves (Barnaby was like that - pain in the ass pest but he would go toe-to-toe with anyone) I might have some respect for him. But what does he do last incident? Goes after a small Euro defenceman with a semi-sucker-punch. I would have loved to see him try that on Stortini.

We couldn't disagree more on Avery - I don't care what the era or whether or not there are unwritten rules or not - there needs to be a certain level of respect in the game for your opponents. What Avery does goes beyond the parameters of the game, and he is either going to seriously hurt someone with a dumb disrespectful knee-jerk play, or someone is going to put his face through the boards.

We have been hearing stuff about head-shots and respecting your opponent ad nauseum in the past year - what Avery does is one of the things that makes other players cross the line and take guys like him out with real attempts to injure. And of course it goes back and forth, tit-for-tat. He won't drop the gloves so you have to get him some other way.

I have no problems with agitators and pests - they have a place but they can take it too far. It may be entertaining to some, but for me it is like Tyson biting Holyfield's ear - it crosses a line and tarnishes the sport.