Shocked? I’m appalled.

Sean @#%&-ing Avery. Your Dallas Stars signed a contract with Sean freaking Avery.

I am stunned and horrified. I can’t believe it. First, the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup and now this.

I hate Avery. I’ve hated him since he was a King. I hated him when he was a Red Wing, and I really hated him as a Ranger.

He’s an agitator, which by itself is not a problem for me. But he has no boundaries. He isn’t afraid to make fun of a guy for having cancer, or afraid to bring race into his on-ice insults. Apparently this kind of thing doesn’t bother Brett Hull.

All day I’ve been ranting and raving over at IPB, where my fellow Stars fans and I got some sympathy from the wonderful IPB Irregulars. Otherwise I might think that I’m alone.

And I have left a couple of comments over at Heika’s DMN blog. I really try not to read the comments over there because they just infuriate me on normal days. They are trotting out the old “you’ll love him when he’s on your team” chestnut. And the “he’s a skilled winger in addition to being a pest” argument is popular.

First of all, I’ll never love him. I will always hate him. If he were to single-handedly bring a Stanley Cup to Dallas, I would still be mad that his name would be etched in our square alongside the names of my beloved Stars. I’d be happy with the Cup, but I’d still hate Sean flippin’ Avery.

Second of all, I don’t believe for one second that he’s anything more than an egomaniacal poof with a uncontrollable (and dirty) mouth.

My favorite is from several posters on Heika’s blog that actually said, in effect, “Sure, it seems like a stupid idea, but I trust Brett Hull so he must know what he’s doing.” Where did that come from? Why does Hull get the benefit of the assumption that he knows what he’s doing? He’s been a GM for PART of a season! This is his second major deal! I actually don’t have a problem with Hull in general, but I’m certainly not going to overlook the potential this deal has for catastrophe because I trust him. I have nothing to go on. I doubt very seriously that even one person ever looked at a Doug Armstrong acquisition that seemed crazy and then thought, “Well, it seems stupid, but I trust Army, so I’m sure it’s okay.” Ever.

To be fair, there are a lot of comments that echo my disgust with the whole thing, but they’re usually met with accusations that we’re just idiots who have never seen him play. I guess they don’t realize that we get Center Ice even out here in the sticks.

Sean effing Avery is a diver. One of his “strengths” is that he draws penalties. Steve Ott does it by getting somebody to punch him. Avery does it by flinging himself to the ice and then claiming he was punched. Avery is a worse diver than Peter Forsberg, and that’s saying a lot.

Avery fancies himself the Hollywood type. Oh, wait. Not even Hollywood. New York. He interned at Vogue, you know. The magazine. And was proud of it. He thinks he’s at the cutting edge of fashion and for all I know he might be. I don’t know any guys that dress like he does or talk about which designer they’re wearing and how much their shoes cost, so that must be the explanation. They’re just behind.

He’s dated some starlets but usually he’s not the first hockey player to date the hockey-player-dating starlets. Elisha Cuthbert seemed like quite the prize, but it turns out she’s taking a tour of the NHL and he was just a stop on it. He probably doesn’t care, though, as long as he’s being mentioned by all the coolest gossip sites.

I’m not sure why he picked Dallas. Probably because there’s a Nieman-Marcus here. And because the Rangers didn’t want him back. Surely, with all of his supposed suitors, there was a team closer to the action that wanted him.

I would really like to know what Brenden Morrow thinks of this. He has never hidden his disdain for Avery in interviews. Somebody last season even mentioned having him as a teammate since Hull was so buddy-buddy with him back in the day, and he made a face as if he were hugely disgusted with the idea. Of course, we’ll never hear.

I wonder how Mike Modano feels about spending the last year or two of his brilliant and illustrious career in a locker room with Sean bleeping Avery. I wonder how Brad Richards will feel about getting retaliation hits for stuff Avery does. Or how Ott feels about being constantly compared to someone who doesn’t recognize lines he shouldn’t cross. I wonder how Marty Turco feels about watching Avery beat up the opposing goalie, knowing he’ll have to take the payback.

I wonder how Dave Tippett feels about having to make extra efforts to instill a little discipline in a grown man that still doesn’t have any.

I wonder how I would have felt if I’d bought season tickets. I’m pretty sure I’d have asked for my money back.

Last season was so great. And the playoffs were so exciting. I fell in love with every single player on the team. Even the new ones that were traded here. That’s actually unusual for me. I usually have at least one or two players that make me wish they were on some other team. But not last season.

All that buzz from the playoffs and the excitement for the next season were dealt a pretty crushing blow, in my opinion.

Now I’m dreading the next four years (FOUR YEARS!). I hope I can learn to live with seeing that horrible grin and that reprehensible game of his for 82 games. I hope I can be happy when things go well. I’m really dreading the first few games of this season where I find out if I can watch it. I will NEVER like him, but I’m hoping I can learn to live with it and still enjoy the rest of the team. I hope his publicist (*eyeroll*) limits his public speaking like he or she did back in New York.

I hope Brett Hull is happy with himself. Because I am not.

The thought of this whole thing is making me want to cry right now.