Moments after I left work today I received word that Bettman had suspended Sean Avery for his earlier comments, which he felt were - by the code with which he suspended Sean - "detrimental to the League or game of hockey."
This is, of course, ridiculous. How is golden boy Crosby crying to the referees at every infraction not detrimental to the game of hockey? It isn't very sportsmanlike. How is the league's own disciplinarian clearly having a double standard when it comes to deciding suspensions not detrimental to the game of hockey? Oh wait, neither of those are, because they protect the players whom the league has chosen to promote.
This league can't have any controversy, nor any personality. Look at the new ad for the Winter Classic - the players are drones going about their routines. There are no idiosyncrasies, there is nothing to make them unique. There is only the brand. Gotta uphold the brand. The boring, corporate brand. Because no one would tune in to watch personalty ... /sarcasm
I would say that free speech is a cause worth boycotting, but let's face it, Bettman doesn't care about empty seats in his buildings. Attendance is slipping, revenues are slipping, teams are laying off staff ... he doesn't care. He simply doesn't care. Not about you, not about me and certainly not about the game. He still has his job and the old codgers who hired him and keep him employed are so rich that they don't care about losing some cash on their toy teams. Colourful characters might make some noise, might make those owners actually take a look at their teams and see how in trouble they are. So let's keep everyone quite, let's keep them all regurgitating the same boring, blase cliches because they don't rock the boat. No characters are allowed, no actual emotion is allowed, no free speech is allowed. Especially for people like Sean Avery.
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