The Snub

The Sean Avery - Martin Brodeur rivalry continues as Avery's antics got the royal snub on Friday night when the teams lined up to shake each other's hands.

I want to clear something up that is driving me nuts that happened on Friday at the New York Rangers v. New Jersey Devils Round 1: Game 5.

It's quite ironic, really. I was standing in the New York Rangers' locker room after the Rangers defeated the New Jersey Devils 5-3 on Friday night, ending the series between the division rivals in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. With my notebook in hand, I was writing down a few quotes from Henrik Lundqvist, when I looked behind me to see a rather large crowd of reporters standing around someone, so I gravitated to the back of the locker room to see who they were interviewing.

The first thing I saw were tattoos on a bare arm of a man. I looked to see if I could see in between the heads of the other reporters and got a glimpse of an eye and then a chest. Based on the tattoos, I knew the person causing all the attention was none other than Sean Avery.

As I stood there listening to him talk about the Martin Brodeur - Sean Avery rivalry and how he and the players were not paying too much attention to all the media hype surrounding it, he started to go on about how classless Brodeur was, and then brought up how Brodeur did not shake his hand after the game. “I guess he forgot to shake my hand,” Avery told us.

But then he went on to say that he would have been the bigger person, and said that if the opportunity would have presented itself, “I would have.”

Now, when I hear a lie, I know it. The way the universe works in my world is that if you tell me a lie, the truth will eventually unravel itself. Well, Avery's little fib to the press unraveled right before my eyes as I stood at the train station waiting for my train.

What he had said to the press really bothered me. I took out my camera saying to myself, I wonder if I caught it on film. As I flipped through the photos I took from the press box, I came across the exact moment that Avery was talking about, and I'm sorry to say that Avery was not the bigger man in this instance, like he said he would have been.

That snub that Avery has been talking about all over the press since Friday night was a MUTUAL snub!

Now, I wouldn't be saying that if I didn't have the proof. Oh, but I have proof.

All of the pictures that were taken down by the ice were from one angle, which supports Avery's claims. From the angle I was shooting from all the way upstairs, it proves that both players had snubbed each other.

Brodeur does not deny that he did not shake Avery's hand. He's admitted to it. But what Avery fails to mention to the press was that he did not attempt to shake Brodeur's hand either. The snub was mutual. The opportunity had presented itself and he was not the bigger man (like he had said he would have been).

Avery has taken this whole 'snub' to the nth degree in the press and they are eating it up. It still would have been the same if he had owned up and said they both had "forgotten" to shake each other's hands. Instead, he put the blame purely on Brodeur and took the victim route to gain sympathy from the press and fans so that they can all say that Brodeur was classless, when in fact, Avery was just as classless as Brodeur was in the matter.

If Avery had extended his hand to Brodeur and then Brodeur had snubbed Avery, then he has every right to talk horribly about Brodeur to the press. But the fact is...Avery never extended that hand to Brodeur. The opportunity had presented itself and he had not been the bigger man. He had done the same as Brodeur. He had snubbed him, as well.

By Avery's own definition, he is as classless as Brodeur. What is unique about this term "classless" is that the entire media has been calling Avery's antics towards Brodeur as being completely 'un-classy.' Avery has done everything in this playoff series from: smacking Brodeur across the face with the blade of his stick when the officials weren't looking; standing in front of Brodeur's crease, poking fun at his divorce from five years ago; and waving his arms in front of Brodeur to distract him from the game (which is a tasteless move in the NHL and is now known amongst hockey fans as the "Avery Rule" that was passed down preventing players from committing a similar act in front of a goaltender).

Now, he's saying that Brodeur is classless.

Thus the Avery - Brodeur rivalry continues...