Once again, Colin Campbell proves he is nothing short of a biased dictator who refuses to punish teams that he favors and is too chicken $hit to punish a Canadian team. In the case from last night, as in many other cases involving Ottawa, specifically Chris Neil, Campbell believes that Ottawa players can do no wrong.
On the Pronger issue, I believe that he was correct, but Brian Burke is 100% correct about Campbell's decision to do nothing about Chris Neil. Chris Neil is a piece of garbage head hunter who appears to be authorized to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants under and obvious umbrella of league protection. Neil's hit on Andy McDonald was dirty and his intent was to hurt him. Campbell knows it, but purposely did nothing about it since the pride of Canada is at stake here, never mind the integrity of the joke of a game this has become.
Bettman, like Campbell, is also blind to reality. No one in America, except for hockey nuts, are watching the finals. Newspapers are not even spending the money to send writers to cover it. Yet, Bettman claims that the league is OK and that despite all the numbers that show the league's popularity declining and growth halting, he still feels that all is well. Let's see, a leader who claims that all is well despite mounds of evidence suggesting otherwise, does this all sound familiar?
The league is not OK. The salary cap may keep going up but nothing else is. The Nashville Predators are all but out of Tennessee, Carolina couldn't sell out the season after their Cup win, and the Finals can't even draw as many viewers as a regular season Orioles game. Americans, even those in the Northeast and Great Lakes, are not watching and not caring and Bettman should be, but is not, scared to death about the long term viability of this league. Bettman is and will be until he either resigns or is ousted, a lame duck.
Campbell, who is in charge of league operations, seems to be operating a beautifully scripted TV series that should be played all summer on Versus between Bull Riding and Sailing. Video replay appears to be the reality TV portion of the series where Co Executive Producer Campbell lets the audience vote, but only takes calls from Ontario. The Jerry Springer portion of the show is everything in between video replays with hardest working slobs in all of sports controlling the action on the ice because they were the oldest horses in the barn (and because McCreary's mustache looks so damn funny). It's not even worth going into detail about the officiating of the playoffs from the mysterious "Toronto War Room" to the missed on ice calls that have now lead to two suspensions by a guy who seems to again take his advice from his audience living north of the border. It's rampant, it's obvious and it is making this league a bigger joke than it already is.
The only thing that one can hope is that when baseball, football, basketball (NBA and WNBA) start lapping the NHL, double lapping in some cases, in all relevant business and marketing categories, the owners will finally realize that the "New" NHL isn't going to succeed with new rules, but by the ousting of the bums who cannot seem to enforce them and who cannot make even the easiest decisions about how to better the league. Hopefully, the owners will oust the regime that is trying to turn hockey into a scripted form of entertainment in order to attract a larger audience. Sound familiar?
This week's SJ Humanitarian Award goes to the lovely and tolerant people Canada for having a society open enough to allow Chris Neil to procreate. Well done. Well done, indeed.
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