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Avery’s Antics Prompt League Response
By Rob Abruzzese on April 14th, 2008 5:04 PM |
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With the Rangers on a 5-on-3 powerplay Sean Avery parked himself in front of Devil’s goalie Martin Brodeur to distract and keep him from seeing the play. On Monday the league ruled that strategy is not allowed.
This is a common tactic which forwards employ in order to gain an advantage while their team is on offense. The difference between the typical play and Avery’s performance was that the agitator had his back completely turned on the play, ignored the action on the ice, and focused solely on keeping Brodeur from seeing the action.
“Nobody should have to play hockey with a stick an inch from your face,” Brodeur said. “But it wasn’t a bad play. While he was doing it, I couldn’t see anything. The two misses were just luck, I couldn’t see a thing.”
Brodeur and Devils’ head coach Brent Sutter both complained to the refs about the play. They replied that while it was conduct they didn’t condone they didn’t know if it violated any rules. Chris Drury may have warned Avery to keep his stick down as well.
On Monday Senior Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell made the league’s position on this type of play clear and said any further conduct like this would be punishable by a two-minute minor penalty. In a new interpretation of Rule 75 the league issued this statement:
“An unsportsmanlike conduct minor penalty (Rule 75) will be interpreted and applied, effective immediately, to a situation when an offensive player positions himself facing the opposition goaltender and engages in actions such as waving his arms or stick in front of the goaltender’s face, for the purpose of improperly interfering with and/or distracting the goaltender as opposed to positioning himself to try to make a play.”
Avery capped off the powerplay by scoring a goal. It was his third so far during the playoffs.
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There are currently 4 responses to “Avery’s Antics Prompt League Response”
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Wait, I know that baseball started up again, but is hockey still be played?
What Avery did was completely bush league. It’s embarassing for hockey to have this kind of stuff going on. Believe me, the NHL knows full and well the only hockey highlight ESPN will be showing the next few days.
I don’t understand why its embarrassing. Brodeur himself said it worked that he could see the few shots that made it through. This play even if it were allowed to continue is unlikely to ever happen all that often since it took a 5-on-3 for Avery to be able to take himself out of the game like that.
Well it isn’t like 5-3 power plays don’t happen often. Just because Broduer said it worked doesn’t justify anything. If I ever thought a hockey player would do what Avery did I would think it would be in Pee Wee’s. Rob, the last line of your post says it all. He wasn’t even trying to make a play on the puck. It’s one thing to face the puck and screen the goalie, it’s a whole different thing when your back is towards the puck flailing your arms around like your trying to scare a kid on Halloween.