NHL SVP of Operations Collin Campbell Comments On Emails

Added on Nov 19, 2010 by J Merrill in

NHL

Colin Campbell has a pretty thankless job when you think about it. Most of the time you only hear his name when something bad is happening to a player. As the Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations, it is his job to dole out the player suspensions, and in most cases the players always feel they are innocent. He handed out two more suspensions this week. He issued a two game suspension to Tampa Bay forward Mattias Ritola, and a three game suspension to Calgary center Olli Jokinen for infractions they committed Wednesday night.

However, many media members and bloggers are bringing up the emails that were brought up in an NHL wrongful termination suit. Especially the ones from Campbell himself! People are demanding apologies for comments he made in regards to Boston center Marc Savard. He referred to Savard as a “Fake Artist” and “the biggest faker going,” in reference to how many penalties he seems to be able to draw when he is hit.

These were internal emails that no one expected to ever be made public, but some feel they warrant discipline. He also questioned why certain penalties were called on his own son Gregory who was playing with the Panthers at the time of the emails, and he also called for the firing of a specific NHL referee.

Marc Savard is currently out the Boston line up for a hit he took from Matt Cooke last march. Cooke was not suspended in the incident, and some are saying its because of his bias for Savard. Campbell, who coached Marc Savard in the late 90′s told NHL.com, “That’s the most ridiculous statement, or one of the more ridiculous statements I’m hearing in this whole affair. I had Marc when he first broke into the League. I was coaching the Rangers and I liked Marc. Marc was a talented player. I knew Marc could embellish and Marc embellished well. I was surprised how well he did embellish. When you’re the coach of a player who knows how to embellish you call it ‘drawing penalties.’ When you’re a coach against a player you call it diving or a fake artist, whatever you want to call it.
“For anyone, anyone in the game to think three years later a comment like that in an e-mail would be attached to an incident involving Cooke and Savard, they’re crazy,” Campbell continued. “It would have been easy to suspend Cooke if I could attach something wrong he did other than he had done wrong things before. We had to find something wrong in that act and we couldn’t. For someone to say that I didn’t want to suspend Cooke because Marc Savard might be faking, there’s no way I thought Marc Savard was faking. One thing about Marc Savard is he was a tough, durable player. He wasn’t someone who would fake an injury. There is a big difference between diving to try to draw a penalty and faking an injury.”

Campbell, who has been in his current position for 12 years and has doled out 363 regular-season suspensions, said that he has never tried nor would he even be able to influence how officials go about their duties on the ice as it pertains to his son. Amidst the calls for his resignation he has garnered support from the media, and even from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman.

Campbell continued “Whether you coach in New York or do this job, whoever does this job, their integrity and judgment will be questioned by a lot of people. I’ve gotten that since I’ve been in this. I work for the 30 owners, the 30 managers, the fans and my job is to try to make sure things are fair and the game is played properly. I work for a good boss who is on top of everything. Gary and I talk if not daily, 10 times daily. For anyone who cares to question my integrity and how I do the job, hey, let them do it. It’s going to continue as long as I do this job. For those who don’t like me or like to criticize the National Hockey League or someone in a management position, this is a ripe opportunity for them to jump on it.”

Campbell also denied the idea that he had a personal grudge with former NHL ref Dean Warren. It was the emails about him that were called into the wrongful termination lawsuit, and the reason why we have seen all the other emails as well. “I’d regret the tone of the e-mails if I had known this many people were going to read them, and those who might not like the National Hockey League or me or disagree with my decisions would find a way to read into what I wrote,” Campbell said. “I don’t regret doing what I did as far as my job because there was no intention to do anything wrong at the time. There was no affecting any game. Everything was up front.”

Campbell basically said its his job to be critical of everyone in the NHL including the refs of the game. He said “Our job is to make sure we got the best referees, the best linesmen, the best overall officials in every game. It was our opinion that Dean Warren was not capable of being one of our top referees. There is no vendetta. We invest a lot of time, effort and money into referees and we give them as much rope to do the job. They’ll make mistakes just like players will, but having said that if there comes a time when we feel they can’t do the job…we’re always getting demands from our teams that you’ve got to stress accountability with your officials and if they can’t cut it, like a player or a coach, it’s time to go. We’re the best league in the world and we expect the best officials like we do the players and coaches.”