Colin Campbell of the NHL photographed during the first round of the 2009 NHL Entry Draft at the Bell Centre on June 26, 2009 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.Bruce Bennett
It was quite a night on TSN Radio yesterday.
First Gary Bettman, then NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell, who was so fired up after listening to the Bettman interview that he was on the verge of shouting several times and accused the hosts - James Cybulski and Dave Feschuk - of having an agenda and "not watching hockey."
The audio is available here, but one of the highlights was when, after a tense 15 minutes, Cybulski asked Campbell if he felt he had "the most thankless job in the world."
"I've got a responsibility to try and protect players from other players in the game of hockey but yet keep the physicality in the game," Campbell said. "To keep jobs like your jobs, everyone's jobs. The game supplies a lot of jobs.
"That's what's thankless about this job. You try to do the right thing, you try to keep physicality in the game and you guys think that I enjoy hearing everybody saying [Raffi]Torres should have been suspended. Well that would have been the easy thing to do. If they want to go forward and say that type of hit or all head hits should be suspended, maybe this job will be easier, but I don't think so."
Campbell went on to say that it's been a difficult postseason to be the disciplinarian, as only one week in, there have already been a near-record number of suspensions.
"Thankless job? Yeah, it's thankless," he said. "Especially at this time of year when there's so much at play here with the playoffs and cities are involved. When you rule on certain situations, all of a sudden you become public enemy No. 1 so... Am I pissed off right now? Yeah I'm pissed off.
"The most suspensions I've had in a playoff were four, in an entire playoffs. We had two going into these playoffs and four already and we're only halfway through the first round."
Some of the key points of contention during Campbell's appearance were the two hits that caused Sidney Crosby's concussion, the Torres non-suspension decision (including the fact that nine anonymous GMs told TSN's Darren Dreger they thought there should be a suspension) and establishing a set number of games for various infractions.
On Crosby's concussion, Campbell was especially outraged at the suggestion Tampa Bay Lightning defenceman Victor Hedman's hit should have been penalized.
"You guys are crazy when you say that," Campbell said. "What do you want to do to the game? You're nuts. There are some hits out there that we don't like, but ... Come on you guys. You can't say that was dirty you guys. You don't watch hockey."