Stay Strong Sean!!

Sean Avery is due to meet with Gary Bettman this morning.

One can only hope that Avery can grovel low enough to placate Gary's ego, which may be the only one in hockey bigger than Avery's own. Bettman is married with three kids, there is no way he understands the complications that arise from dating starlets in today's day and age. Maybe he should bring the commish a bottle of wine, some Hannukah presents for the kiddies and a whole lotta humble pie:

'I'm sorry Gary, I'm so sorry. I am not bigger than the game. I am not bigger than you. I did get hockey on ESPN, ESPN2, CNN ... hell, pretty much every news and sports station there is. When were you able to do that? Oh yeah, when you killed the game for a year. I just thought that any publicity is good publicity, they taught me that at Vogue with all of the coked out models. Really, I'm sorry. I will try my hardest to stay in line, keep things as boring as you want, not spread hockey into popular culture and not do anything else to embarrass the game and my teammates any more than my teammates are already embarrassing themselves by playing so piss poorly. Seriously, Marty Turco, stop worrying about me and try to block a puck every now and then. I don't know what else to say Gary, my bad ... please let me play hockey again or I will have to start getting rich selling men's fashions and I'm not ready to do that until I get a Stanley Cup.

Perspective is a valuable thing and scarily enough, Larry Brooks has provided it by pointing out that Avery has already been suspended for as long as Randy Jones was for his terrible hit to Patrice Bergeron and twice as long as Chris Pronger was for trying to decapitate Dean McCammond.

By suspending Avery for any longer, Bettman would send the message that falling into line is more important than the health of the players. The sad thing? In Bettman's case it is more important to him than the health of the players - you can always get more players ...