Legal fight gets real for NHL
Antiquated thinking was all too prevalent among league brass
The fight for the soul of hockey isn’t new; only the actors change. There was no appetite to curb fighting when NHLPA members suggested it in 1975 — “if violence ceases to exist, it will not be the same game,” said Clarence Campbell at the time — or when Harry Sinden suggested it in 1992. In 2009 GMs wanted to keep hits to the head, as long as they were delivered with a shoulder.
Hockey has grown faster over the years, always faster, but parts of it have stayed slow.
When you dig through the trove of nearly 300 emails the National Hockey League had to disclose as part of a class-action concussion lawsuit, there are endless studies, memos, charts. There is the commissioner, who is now over two decades in.
And there are his hockey men, current and former: Colin Campbell, Mike Murphy, Brian Burke, Kris King, Brendan Shanahan. This correspondence is only a small part of their work, incomplete, but there is a history of hockey in there. Campbell, Murphy, King and Burke are of a kind, even though at times they have disagreed. They are the old school, and they tend to carry the day.
Campbell oscillates with passion, veering from place to place; in 2007, he refers to “greenpeace pukes” in a conversation with Burke; in 2008, he sends a memo to GMs saying “we cannot and will not tolerate blows to the head that are deliberate, avoidable, and illegal;” in 2013, he responds to an email from Ottawa Senators trainer Gerry Townend that expresses concern about player education, officiating and a lack of post-concussion treatment resources by writing, “This guy is an absolute freaking idiot!” Campbell is not alone. Mike Murphy, the NHL’s senior vicepresident of hockey operations, writes in 2011 that “I am a strong believer we are ‘over doctored; too many so called experts weighting in who have never been on field of play.
“I realize we do have a problem but i think we have enhanced our problem by listening to all these experts.” His vice-president of hockey operations, Kris King, writes, “I also feel today’s players don’t mind having a week or 2 off during the season, where we never had that option for fear of losing ice time or worse, our spot in the line up. I do agree we are now at the point where we as a group must do all we can to “beat this up” and not with the (concussion doctor) Charles Tators of the world, just Hockey people as you have stated.”
They are wrestling with it but they are hockey men, trying to wall off doctors and science. Campbell, over time, becomes more of a searcher, finds doubt.
Ten days after senior hockey league player Don Sanderson died following a fight, Campbell writes to TSN’s Bob McKenzie, “I am thinking of coming out and saying it’s time ... to get rid of fighting ... or at least take major steps to reduce it. I will need my bosse’s ok but thinking strongly of it. I hated fighting ... had to do it though. particularly in the 70s but it is stupid. I don’t remember one fight in pond hockey or ball hockey. Will I get fried. Will it work.”
And then raises the spectre of Matt Cooke — “he can run whoever he wants and there is no pressure on him to fight like there was in the 70s and 80s! Think about it.”
The rats will take over, the end will come, the old argument. Just over a year later, Cooke wouldn’t be suspended for his blindside shoulder to Marc Savard’s head. A year after that, blindside hits are finally deemed unacceptable. It took a long time.
And then in 2011, a little over one year into his tenure, Shanahan’s tone is strikingly different. He writes that the league should explore making all checks to the head illegal, because the union seemed to be leaning in that direction, and it would be worth finding out. He suggests ejections for fighting. He writes about how fighters have changed since the 1990s — “Fighters used to aspire to become regular players ... now they used to take alcohol or cocaine to cope. (Kordic) Now they take pills. Pills to sleep. Pills to wake up. Pills to ease the pain. Pills to amp up. Getting them online.”
He seems less encumbered by the old arguments, the old wars. He thinks about the brain, as well as the hit. He views fighters as people because he fought, and it made him sick to his stomach the day before he knew one was coming, and he explored how that affected the guys who did it every day.
In February of 2012 Shanahan writes, “I believe that fighting as a tool or strategy is leaving the game of hockey and we can either lead or follow.”
And Campbell replied, “Not so sure how drastic we take that lead if that is what your suggesting.”
He can be seen as a sort of tragic figure, Colin Campbell.
Of course, the board of governors debated an ejection for fighting in 1992, too — the men who were for it were Sinden, Mike Milbury, and Howard Baldwin, and the opponents were Lou Lamoriello, Glen Sather and Pat Quinn. Guess who carried the day.
More than anything, you see how hockey got to this point: how fighting lingers, how head-shots lasted, how the league could find itself in a lawsuit in which another old hockey man — Mark Napier, the president of the NHL Alumni Association — quietly forwards an internal update on the lawsuit to NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly, to keep the other side informed.
You can see who Gary Bettman has relied on to guide this game, and you can see how often his own vision has been limited to theirs, all these years. The history of hockey is violent and long, and sometimes it can’t see anything beyond its own horizon.