FanHouse Suspension

Yesterday afternoon NHL commish Gary Bettman acted swiftly and firmly when he decided that Dallas' Sean Avery would be suspended indefinitely following his comments yesterday morning.

Inside the blogosphere, as you might suspect, there are many differing opinions on the suspension. Some agree with it, calling the comments out of line and others are firmly entrenched on the other side of the fence. Either way, I think it's clear that yet again Sean Avery has gotten the NHL in the headlines for all the wrong reasons and the NHL is only helping him spread the word.

Let's face the facts. This story was going to set the hockey world on fire the moments those words left Avery's lips. That was the point of no return. What the NHL did was magnify the negative press. They made this look like the No Fun League, again, a place in which personality is dishonorable. In this case, the comments are in bad taste. There's no doubt about that. But this is Sean Avery and he is going to have his fun. Ignoring this may have even swept it under the rug a little, but a suspension from the league is a black and white description of league policy. And league policy is not something that this matter needed.

Just how cooked is Jamie "Noodles" McLennan going to be by the NHL?

McLennan had just entered the game and then took a slashing penalty against Johan Franzen 18 seconds later. Apparently, McLennan wasn't pleased with his first attempt, so, as we see in the video, he took a nice two-handed chop at Franzen's midsection. This pretty much says 'Sore Loser', eh?

This wasn't a headshot, and Franzen wasn't hurt too badly, so I wouldn't expect the Chris Simon treatment. Still, the NHL can't just allow some backup goalie to enter a game and then go on a hacking rampage like a bad horror movie villian.

I'm guessing a five game suspension that will carry into next season (as we know the Flames won't win Game Seven, right?)

Todd Simpson, a brutish defensive-defenseman who had spent this entire season with the Hannover Scorpions of the German Elite League, was blocked by the NHL in his late-season attempt to joint the Islanders.

Simpson, it seems, can't escape his past ...

A suspension given to New York Islanders defenceman Todd Simpson when he was in the German Ice Hockey League was upheld by the NHL on last night, preventing him from making his debut with the Islanders.

Simpson, signed Thursday by the Islanders for the final week of the regular season, was suspended indefinitely after receiving a penalty for abuse of an official while playing in the Hannover Scorpions' last post-season game.

The International Ice Hockey told the NHL that the German league will hold a hearing tomorrow and asked that the suspension be upheld. The NHL honoured the request and said it will review the decision following the hearing and then determine Simpson's status in North America.

I think that it's great that the NHL is upholding Simpson's German suspension. Why should Simpson be allowed to run away from the bad deeds he did, just because they were done overseas? If the IIHF and the NHL are going to have a good relationship, the various leagues need to respect each other and back each other up in cases like this.

Everyone has been weighing in on the fact that ND point guard Kyle McAlarney was dismissed from ND and can't apply for re-admittance until after the summer semester. MJD pointed out the condemnation of the penalty from Garry Parrish from CBS Sportsline. The part that stinks is that they dragged out the decision -- though the fact that school was out of session the prior couple of weeks would be a factor in that. After all, this was the school's Student Affairs Committee. Not so easy to convene when there are members of the SAC on break. McAlarney was charged on December 28.

Still, a month later to decide put the kid in limbo. Mike DeCourcy at the Sporting News blasted the mother for being upset at the school.

When I first read Janice McAlarney was telling reporters she was "ashamed," I thought that was kind of a harsh comment to make in public about her son Kyle, the erstwhile starting point guard at Notre Dame.

Ah, but she wasn't talking about Kyle. After Notre Dame suspended him for the semester because of his arrest on marijuana possession charges, she told the Associated Press she was "ashamed of the university. My son is a great kid. He did not deserve this. The punishment did not fit the crime."

Given her attitude, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised McAlarney was arrested for marijuana possession after a policeman stopped his car because, he said, it was being driven erratically. The policeman smelled what he considered to be the odor of marijuana coming from the car, then searched and found a substance police said tested positive for the drug. And all of this happened in the middle of the season, by the way.

If a parent doesn't see this as a very big deal, I'm not sure how a child is going to.

Uhhh, that's a little unfair. Just like Parrish was being a bit unfair by floating the ND screwing McAlarney conspiracy theory (leave that to us tinfoil-wearing irresponsible bloggers).

The kid has to bear responsibility and pay the price. This is his mother, though, and they have been waiting a month to find out. She's probably had a month to kick his butt over the stupidity. He had started classes and was not denying responsibility. He had already gotten into a diversion program for first time offenders with the Prosecutor's office. Of course she would be upset to see him kicked out of school -- not simply suspended from the team. He is stuck taking the semester off and being at home.

The thing I had been wondering about was whether this was a typical decision from the ND SAC for similar violations of the du lac. That would go a lot further to determining the "fairness." ND blogger at Black and Green has an ambiguous answer.

Apparently you haven't heard that just about every other drug case ends up with a semester dismissal from Notre Dame. ND is not like a public school, it's not like Boston College, it's not like any other university in the world. True, this suspension is harsh. You should have thought about your punishment before you decided to light up.

So if this was typical, maybe this is not so out of proportion. Except that it is actually not a single semester suspension. It is two semesters. He can't apply for re-admittance to the summer session and try and catch up on a missed semester -- as pointed out in the comments.

I stand corrected. As of right now, K-Mac's summer suspension is in limbo. A two-semester suspension is harsher than most, although students are home over the Summer.

Unless they are taking summer classes. That's why there's a summer semester. As it stands now, at least three schools -- Xavier, Virginia and Michigan State -- are very interested in McAlarney considering their schools. At least ND doesn't have to worry about him transferring to a Big East school. The Big East has a prohibition on transfers from schools within the conference.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am an attorney. I graduated law school in 2004, so I still remember my law school experience fairly vividly.

Thus, I believe I am in a position to offer John Welbourn some advice-- Crim Law won't teach you how to avoid NFL suspensions. Common Sense 101 will, though.

There was always some mystery around Welbourn's decision to retire in order to attend law school. The timing was suspicious, to say the least, and Carl Peterson's comments confirm the suspicions:

"Obviously I knew about this for some time," Peterson said. "I guess you could say we anticipated this."

AP Sports. Within that article, we also find out that Welbourn applied for reinstatement.

Suspicious? Yup. Dumb? Yup. Surprising? Nope.

Obviously, most professional athletes who suspect they will be suspended for substance abuse will be less than forthcoming even when the suspension becomes official. But did Welbourn really think that "retiring" would remove all suspicion that maybe, just maybe, he had a second substance abuse violation instead? Did he think, "If I announce my retirement, perhaps I can quietly apply for reinstatement, come back in seven games, and nobody will notice?"

The Chiefs were prepared for the suspension, as every team probably should be after a player has been suspended once. At this point, they know that they simply cannot depend on John Welbourn anymore. For his sake, here's hoping his LSAT score is higher than his IQ.

P.S. One more word of advice, John-- you may want to work in a state that doesn't scrutinize bar applications that closely.