B R O A D W A Y***B L U E S H I R T S

Rygar wrote:

Hey Bathy, your Rags are getting hosed in the NHL battle game thread.
Might want to gather the troops and get in there

xavier mcdaniel wrote:

ON a runway model or an Upper East Side debutante, black nail polish might seem a nod to vampy elegance. On a professional hockey player — even one balancing rock shrimp tempura on chopsticks, as Sean Avery, a left wing for the New York Rangers, was doing on a recent Monday night — the look is a little more menacing.

“It’s my fighting hand,” Mr. Avery, 27, said over dinner at Nobu Next Door. Traded to the Rangers from the Los Angeles Kings in February, he was explaining how he paints his nails to intimidate opponents before he tussles on the ice. And being feisty and hot-headed, that’s often.

Out on the town with him, however, one wonders what Mr. Avery has to be so surly about. Mr. Avery has spent much of his career squiring around girlfriends like Rachel Hunter and Elisha Cuthbert. Equally at home in the penalty box or the front row of a Calvin Klein show, he has become the rarest of sports subspecies: the boldface hockey bruiser.

“In a way, I want to make our sport cooler,” Mr. Avery said of his high-profile exploits.

The fans at Madison Square Garden don’t need to be sold. Earlier that Monday, the muscular Mr. Avery, dressed in a black V-neck while recovering from wrist surgery, had made a surprise appearance in the raucous upper ring of the arena known as the “blue seats” during a game against the Carolina Hurricanes.

“Do I really need two security guards?” he asked the Rangers publicist leading the expedition.

“Hey, you’re a rock star,” the publicist said. Minutes later, a sea of fans in blue jerseys had swallowed Mr. Avery, chanting his name.

Later, over a low-key dinner, Mr. Avery was joined by Jeffrey Goldstein, who runs the downtown clothing shop Blue & Cream, and Mr. Goldstein’s girlfriend, Samantha Greenes. Halfway through the meal, Matt Abramcyk, a proprietor of the Beatrice Inn, the West Village hipster hideaway, slid into a banquette, eager to talk hockey.

“I’ve been a fan said I was 4,” said Mr. Abramcyk, dressed in a fedora that Mr. Avery said made him look “like one of the guys in The Band.”

“I’d rather hang myself than talk about sports,” Mr. Avery said. He turned the conversation to the New Museum of Contemporary Art downtown.

His friends ribbed him about his unjock-like sensibilities, most visible in his usual fashion palette: black, highlighted by accents of black.

“I’m a dark guy,” Mr. Avery said. “I like that funereal feel.”

That taste extends beyond clothing. Mr. Avery admitted that he drives his teammates crazy by cranking up Sigur Ros, the moody Icelandic rock band, before games. “The more sad the music, the better,” he explained.

After dinner, Mr. Avery and his friends strolled to Smith & Mills, a new restaurant owned partly by Mr. Abramcyk, for a few British ales. It was a quiet evening for a guy whose romantic life, like his on-ice confrontations, often ends up in the tabloids. While recent reports on celebrity Web sites have linked him to Mary-Kate Olsen (he says they are just friends), Mr. Avery says he is single and happy with life in New York.

So why all the rage on the ice?

“I get my anger out at work,” he said, eyeing an attractive brunette in the corner of the bar, “so I can relax afterward.”

NY PJ1 wrote:

The fans at Madison Square Garden don’t need to be sold. Earlier that Monday, the muscular Mr. Avery, dressed in a black V-neck while recovering from wrist surgery, had made a surprise appearance in the raucous upper ring of the arena known as the “blue seats” during a game against the Carolina Hurricanes.





YA GOTTA LOVE US !!!!




LET'S GO RANGER'S !!