ShareThisThe inclination to make examples of louts will never change the essential core of professional sports that sports are made up of louts.
Sean Avery, a rather oafish hockey player for the Dallas Stars, remained entirely in character when demeaning a former girlfriend and, thus, was almost immediately no longer allowed to play hockey.
Imagine all the awful things that hockey players do to one another, or even say to one another, in a league that allows and encourages revenge and reprisal, that a crude, boorish toss-away line should so offend the guardians of hockey morality.
And just putting those two words together -- hockey and morality -- is almost as distasteful as the two words Avery used.
Here's what he said, up to a point: "It's become a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my (old girlfriends)."
And, for this, hockey has gotten more attention than any other time this season, more than since Todd Bertuzzi sucker-punched Steve Moore.
None of Avery's words, by the way, are profane, and used separately or in another context, say as a food offering in a homeless shelter, might actually seem considerate and kindhearted.
But, referring to an ex-girlfriend and her new hockey-player escort, especially before a TV camera and not on the ice and into the ear of the replacement boyfriend, they are beyond the bounds of polite society. But, then, so is hockey.
This was, according to the league sanction, "conduct detrimental to the league or game of hockey," which is not to say it wasn't, but of all the detriments that hockey encourages, this does seem a bit tame.
So why kick Avery out of the game indefinitely? The myth must be protected, that somehow sports makes those who excel at sports better human beings, when O.J. Simpson should have changed that notion forever.
Oh, the list is impressive. From Michael Vick to Mike Tyson to Denny McLain, all of whom at least went through the justice system to arrive at their punishments.
The tendency nowadays is to forgo all that legal stuff, all that constitutional hoo-haw.
So it is that a professional football team will suspend a player for shooting himself accidentally in the thigh, clearly an act of carelessness and stupidity but otherwise victimless, not counting the actual victim, the player himself.
One does not imagine that all those who wear Plaxico Burress jerseys to New York Giants games would be inspired to pack a Glock the next time they go for a beer if nothing had been done to Burress.
The spore trail of Pacman Jones gets a little muddied, mostly because Jones keeps going back over it, but the NFL now considers Jones again decent enough to smack around receivers for the Dallas Cowboys.
Jones had lately been excused from action for scuffling with his own bodyguard, much too loudly for paying guests of a Dallas hotel.
Various incidents of assault have cost wide receiver Chris Henry of the Bengals his career, the sheer volume being more impressive than any actual harm done, but the personal-conduct demands for the modern lout are strict.
Carmelo Anthony failed to begin the season with his Denver Nuggets teammates for a careless lack of sobriety, and receiver Brandon Marshall similarly missed the beginning of the Broncos' year for off-field issues that can generally be classified as drawing attention to himself.
The freedom to be an idiot is still one of the freedoms, if the consequences are not always neatly obvious. Sports leagues now make the judgment as it suits their sense of image.
Off-the-field, off-the-ice, off-the-court behavior is shoehorned into the same box as on-the-field conduct, except that what happens on the field is offered as entertainment, and money is charged to witness it.
As expected, Avery apologized for his remark, when the only apology he should have had to make was to actress Elisha Cuthbert, his ex-girlfriend, and Calgary defenseman Dion Phaneuf, her new boyfriend.
Avery is not likely to get a lot of support from his contemporaries, nearly two-thirds of whom once voted him the most hated player in the league.
Boorish speech is still free speech, unpleasant speech is still protected. The right to make a fool of oneself might not be in the Constitution but is certainly implied.
A hockey thug symbolizing freedom of speech is as disturbing as Hustler Magazine crusading for freedom of the press, but that's how these things happen.
Justice does not choose its advocates. If it did, they would at least shave.
Be crude with a stick in your hand, and thousands cheer. Be vulgar trying to be clever, and you are out of a job.
(Contact Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News at lincicomeb(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)
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