COLIN CAMPBELL AND THE CHRONICLES OF CONTROVERSY
It has been another bumpy week in Colin Campbell’s tenure inside the National Hockey League’s head offices, with a rash of embarrassing emails unsealed as part of a classaction lawsuit former players are bringing against the league. Here are five other flashpoints in Campbell’s career:
A COLOURFUL WEEK
On Oct. 27, 1996, as head coach of the New York Rangers, Campbell reportedly shoved Buffalo Sabres counterpart Ted Nolan during a game. The conflict was said to escalate until a security guard finally stepped between the two men. Three days later, Campbell picked another fight with another opponent — New Jersey Devils veteran Ken Daneyko, a defenceman ejected from the game. “This little weasel is yipping at me,” Daneyko told reporters. “I don’t need a guy who played chicken (expletive) his entire career questioning my career.”
A RECORD SUSPENSION
Late in the third period of a game on Feb. 21, 2000, with his Boston Bruins down 5-2 to the Vancouver Canucks, defenceman Marty McSorley stalked enforcer Donald Brashear across the neutral zone before slashing him viciously in the head. Brashear fell to the ice, unconscious. The NHL acted quickly. Within a day, it announced McSorley had been suspended indefinitely. By the second day, the hammer dropped — the 36-year-old drew the harshest punishment in NHL history, kicked out for the final 23 games of the season. “It’s an isolated incident,” said Campbell, then a senior vice-president responsible for discipline. “It certain- ly isn’t a reflection of our game.”
A GRUESOME ATTACK
In the third period of a blowout on March 8, 2004, Vancouver winger Todd Bertuzzi unleashed a vicious sucker-punch on Colorado forward Steve Moore. Bertuzzi drove his victim to the ice, face-first. Moore suffered three broken vertebrae and a concussion, and never played again. Bertuzzi was suspended for the rest of the regular season — 13 games — as well as the playoffs, and lost about US$500,000 wages. “I’m sure Todd Bertuzzi would like to turn the clock back, turn the calendar,” Campbell told reporters. “And I’m sure we’ve all made wrong decisions we’re not proud of.”
A BOMBSHELL CASE
In November 2010, Tyler Dellow, a Toronto lawyer and blogger, uncovered a series of email exchanges featuring Campbell. They had been entered into evidence in the wrongful dismissal suit former referee Dean Warren brought against the NHL, and they raised questions about judgement and favouritism in the league’s head office. One such question was raised in an email Campbell sent to a colleague after Campbell’s son Gregory, playing for the Florida Panthers, was called for high-sticking on Boston Bruins forward Marc Savard. Campbell referred to Savard as “that little fake artist.”
A VOLUNTARY REMOVAL
On June 1, 2011, the NHL announced Campbell was stepping aside as the chief disciplinarian, giving way to Brendan Shanahan. Campbell had been on the job since 1998, and had come under increasing fire for inconsistencies in supplementary discipline. That decision-making process was widely referred to as the “Wheel of Justice” for its unpredictability. “It’s a job that needs, as I said to Gary [Bettman], needs some fresh eyes, a fresh look,” Campbell told reporters.