As if the Flyers-Rangers Winter Classic tilt needed more excitement and hype, Ranger pest Sean Avery is making things much more interesting for the Jan. 2 battle in Philadelphia.
After telling reporters that Flyers winger Wayne Simmonds called him a gay slur during Monday night's preseason tilt, members of the Flyers fired back on Tuesday, according to the Philadelphia Sports Daily.
"Ah, he's always chirping," Flyers forward Scott Hartnell said. "When I was going through my divorce, he was chirping to me about that.
"Some things can’t be talked about, but from him I didn't expect anything less," he added. "I knew it was coming. Like I'm sitting here crying about what he said and hurt my feelings. I think I fought him a few times and beat him up a few times. Words don't hurt."
"He should have done something about it," head coach Peter Laviolette said about Avery. "There was plenty of opportunity to have some fun last night, he just chose not to."
Simmonds claims he didn't use a gay slur.
"He asked me if I called him a gay slur and I told him 'no,'" Simmonds said. "I said a lot of things, but that wasn't one of them. There's a lot of things I said to him that I'm obviously not gonna repeat, but I didn't say that to him.
"I've had things said to me that I haven't said anything about," Simmonds added. "Obviously I'm not gonna talk about it, but I think it should stay on the ice as far as that goes."
