Maple Leafs prominent in league email reveal

Former Maple Leafs defenceman Mike van Ryn, enforcer Colton Orr and bombastic GM Brian Burke figure prominently in a stream of NHL internal emails that reveal the league’s thinking on fighting and concussions.

Van Ryn, now coach of the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers, was a Leaf for 27 games but had his career cut short due to a concussion suffered as the result of a hit from Montreal’s Tom Kostopoulos on Nov. 10, 2008. Van Ryn, who suffered a broken nose and broken hand on the play, got no sympathy from the NHL’s head office — they even seemed put out to have do deal with it.

“Van Ryan (sic) is a woos (sic) and soft but he ended up with a broken nose and broken hand,” Campbell wrote in an email to Bettman. “He should be penalized and suspended for putting himself in a bad position. We are having a hearing tomorrow for Kotspoulos (Kostopoulos).”

And perhaps even more troubling is the acknowledgement in internal emails that Orr had suffered concussions no one was tracking. These emails discussed Burke’s famed 2012 lament when he sent Orr to the minors; Burke had complained the league was expunging fighting from the game and fretted the “rats” were taking over.

“We figure he (Orr) has had at least 3 concussions in the last year (even though NONE are recorded),” Campbell writes to Bettman and others. “Also, at 1 Million this year and 1 Million next year WAY TOO expensive for teams. And another problem, don’t think he can play . . . slight problem!”

Bettman dismisses Burke’s lament as “an excuse/distraction with respect to getting rid of orr.”

Burke, at one point the league’s chief disciplinarian, was the Leafs’ GM when the league took tighter control on head shots and even fighting.

The emails reveal Burke as he was — an old-school thinker who adapted to new realities. As much as he loved fighting and hard hits, he saw a need to control them even if he lamented their decline. And as GM, he advocated on behalf of his players. Kevin McGran