NHL Senior Vice President (Is there a Junior?) and Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell is losing his mind. Well, some would argue that he did lost it a long time ago. I've never heard someone in professional sports get so defensive when interviewed.
Anytime I've heard him speak to the media, Campbell gets extremely upset and says that the members of the media didn't play hockey and don't know hockey, so they shouldn't be asking questions. It's a "thankless job" because he does a poor job.
Here is a link to his latest interview. You will find it on the right side of the site and on the second page of videos. It's titled "Cybulski & Company: Colin Campbell Interview". Campbell took over the interview and basically whined the whole time about people questioning his decisions.
I'll let you be the judge as to whether you think he is fit for the job, but here are my thoughts. Campbell needs to go. While I agree with him on the hit that knocked Sidney Crosby out, I disagree with him about everything else. No one in media circles knows about this mysterious video that says targeting a player's head behind the net is OK because there are no "blind-side" hits back there. Yet Campbell says it was sent to "everyone in the media".
I also don't understand how he can justify not suspending Raffi Torres for checking Brent Seabrook in the head, when he suspended Steve Downie for basically the same kind of hit. The only differences were that Downie left his feet and didn't actually hit the head, whereas Torres stayed on his feet but connected with his victim's head. They both had the intent of hitting a player in the head, so they should have been suspended. Instead, Torres got to play the next game and Seabrook was out with a possible concussion.
Campbell will constantly tell his critics that they don't understand the game of hockey, but maybe the league shouldn't be trusting a former player that logged 1,292 penalty minutes in 636 career games. He clearly didn't understand or respect the rules when he played. How can we expect him to understand them today?
Then there was the e-mail controversy in 2010. Campbell sent e-mails to the director of officiating Stephan Walkom crying about how refs called Campbell's son, Gregory of the Boston Bruins, for a penalty. If that's not an attempt to abuse power, I don't know what is.
Colin Campbell needs to go. He is hurting the league.
Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land
Here's a column from the Trib's Joe Starkey. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_733244.html
ReplyDeleteHe made a great point in here that I forgot. Starkey thinks that the Matt Cooke suspension's length was Campbell's and the league's way of getting back at the Penguins for their criticism of how the league handles head shots and other dirty plays. When you hear Campbell speak in the interview linked above, you can tell he does not like people questioning him. And I think Starkey is on to something.