163 replies to this topic

[haroldsnepsts]

A blogger went through an old lawsuit from 2007 where an official thought he was improperly dismissed. The interesting part is the communication between Colin Campbell, Director of Hockey Operations and Stephen Walkom, Director of Officiating.

Not sure how long this link will hold up with the traffic, but this guy does pretty good detective work on what games Campbell is bitching about.

http://www.mc79hockey.com/?p=3518

Here's a snippet of one of Colin's emails:

To Stephen Walkom/Tor/NHL@NHL
Subject Re: Delayed Penalties/High Sticks 02/#/2007 4:24 pm

A bend in the road is a dead end if you round the corner and Dean Warren is standing there. Your answer re: his high stick calls and the score of the game were horse s***. The 3rd call on [player] was while they were down 5 on 4 and on a def zone face off vs that little fake artist [player] I had him in [city] biggest faker going. And Warren fell for it when he grabbed his face on a face off. Your supposed to see the act, not call the embellishing act. Dean Warren has to go with [referee] There must be a way to get rid of this guy. Is there a way we can tract (sic) and total minors called by referees this year. We could then get the minors they call per game. … or with 2 [referees on the ice] it is impossible? Warren and [referee] out of [club’s] games. Give them to [referees].

After some research, Marc Savard fits the description of the "little faker" who had played for Campbell earlier in his career. And the game matches one where there was a high sticking penalty on a faceoff called against... wait for it... Gregory Campbell, Colin's son. It was his third penalty of the game.

Implications aside, I can't believe he communicates and conducts himself like this, even in email. He sounds like a hothead with a lot of grudges. Not good for the head disciplinarian of the league.

Here's the link to the court case. Just scroll down to the emails.

http://www.mc79hockey.com/?p=3518

Curious to see if this gets picked up anywhere. As the blogger points out, if you want a careful watch on the officiating of your team's games, the simple solution is to sign Greg Campbell.

Edited by haroldsnepsts, 15 November 2010 - 01:23 AM.

[Nev]

Wow....just wow.....then you read further down and find him bitching because he heard on the radio (!) that a costly call against his son was weak.

What staggers me the most is the complete lack of proffesionalism in those emails, Campbell especially. For someone so senior and so highly paid to be writing emails like he's in a chat room...and to do it when talking about potentially dismissing someone.....I'm lost for words.

Thanks for finding this mate, further evidence of the lack of brains + class at the top of the NHL. Sadly I doubt anything will change

[haroldsnepsts]

Wow....just wow.....then you read further down and find him bitching because he heard on the radio (!) that a costly call against his son was weak.

What staggers me the most is the complete lack of proffesionalism in those emails, Campbell especially. For someone so senior and so highly paid to be writing emails like he's in a chat room...and to do it when talking about potentially dismissing someone.....I'm lost for words.

Thanks for finding this mate, further evidence of the lack of brains + class at the top of the NHL. Sadly I doubt anything will change

Agreed. If you someone ever had a conspiracy theory about personal grudges in Campbell's decisions, this certainly supports it.


Here's a snippet of one of Colin's emails:

Re [player]
Colin Campbell to Stephen Walkom, Mike Murphy
02/#/2007 09:21 AM

I know Murph and Kinger like [player] as a player but my view of him is this exactly…he puts his whining ahead of the game. I don’t think this is a regular occurrence (…..getting screwed) and …..exploded ………over the disallowed goal. He may be uncontrollable by ………….and……………..as I think his frustration level has hit a high point. He hates officials as well. He is still pissed off at [referee] for a call he missed in the playoffs years ago as I remember him bugging Murph about it. Let’s give him Warren and [referee] than (sic) he will really have something to whine about.

It's a little hard to follow because the legal documents have removed players names and references to cities and games. But he's basically calling a player a whiner and joking (hopefully?) about assigning s***ty refs to that players games to really give him something to complain about.

Edited by haroldsnepsts, 15 November 2010 - 01:39 AM.

[TX Wing]

i give campbell a week before he is looking for another job.

[scottj]

lol

CONFLICT OF INTEREST... if you're son's playing in a game that is governed by your organization you should have no authority/say-so in that game whatsoever...

you can't blame the guy for sticking up for his son... everybody else would, but this story stinks of unprofessionalism and (if those emails are verbatim) horrible grammar

[Heaten]

Agreed. If you someone ever had a conspiracy theory about personal grudges in Campbell's decisions, this certainly supports it.


Here's a snippet of one of Colin's emails:



It's a little hard to follow because the legal documents have removed players names and references to cities and games. But he's basically calling a player a whiner and joking (hopefully?) about assigning s***ty refs to that players games to really give him something to complain about.

Is he talking about Larry Murphy [Murph]?

[Howard He Do It?!]

Is he talking about Larry Murphy [Murph]?

Most likely Mike Murphy, vice-president of hockey operations.

[scottj]

Most likely Mike Murphy, vice-president of hockey operations.

yup

[Howard He Do It?!]

Gary Bettman and his fantastic crew of rejects need to kindly leave the NHL and return to hell where they belong. No wonder the NHL can never seem to get disciplinary measures right, their head disciplinarian cannot construct a coherent sentence.

[Heaten]

Most likely Mike Murphy, vice-president of hockey operations.

Sounds like whenever someone gets on Campbell's bad side, he's willing to abuse his powers just to be a ****. Hope that cocksucker gets fired.

Edited by Heaten, 15 November 2010 - 01:56 AM.

[Howard He Do It?!]

Sounds like whenever someone gets on Campbell's bad side, he's willing to abuse his powers just to be a ****. Hope that cocksucker gets fired.

Who has the power to fire him? Bettman? The board of governors? I bet nothing happens.

[InKennyWeTrust]

Who has the power to fire him? Bettman? The board of governors? I bet nothing happens.

QFT.

At least now I don't feel like I'm wearing a tinfoil cap whenever I see a blown call.

[Drake_Marcus]

A blogger went through an old lawsuit from 2007 where an official thought he was improperly dismissed. The interesting part is the communication between Colin Campbell, Director of Hockey Operations and Stephen Walkom, Director of Officiating.

Not sure how long this link will hold up with the traffic, but this guy does pretty good detective work on what games Campbell is bitching about.

http://www.mc79hockey.com/?p=3518

Here's a snippet of one of Colin's emails:



After some research, Marc Savard fits the description of the "little faker" who had played for Campbell earlier in his career. And the game matches one where there was a high sticking penalty on a faceoff called against... wait for it... Gregory Campbell, Colin's son. It was his third penalty of the game.

Implications aside, I can't believe he communicates and conducts himself like this, even in email. He sounds like a hothead with a lot of grudges. Not good for the head disciplinarian of the league.

Here's the link to the court case. Just scroll down to the emails.

http://www.mc79hockey.com/?p=3518

Curious to see if this gets picked up anywhere. As the blogger points out, if you want a careful watch on the officiating of your team's games, the simple solution is to sign Greg Campbell.

It deeply saddens me that a man of Campbell's stature doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're".

[Shoreline]

This was published in TheStar a year before last month..

http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/nhl/article/708431--nhl-plotted-to-fire-pro-union-official

2009/10/10

NHL plotted to fire pro-union official

NHL vice-president Colin Campbell strategized the firing of official Dean Warren in a series of often profane emails in 2006 and 2007.

"Warren has to go," Campbell wrote to then officiating director Stephen Walkom on Feb. 26, 2007, part of the evidence presented in an Ontario Labour Relations Board hearing examining Warren's termination last year.

"There must be a way to get rid of this guy. Is there a way we could track total minors called by referees this year?

Walkom responded in writing: "I think we have that data but it may work in (Warren's) favour. That why I'm against data."

Warren alleges in a complaint before the labour board that he was fired for his vigorous advocacy as an executive member of the NHL Officials' Association.

Prior to his 2006 election to the executive, he had been invited to officiate in the playoffs four of the previous five seasons and given generally laudatory performance reviews.

After his appointment, he was excluded from playoff work for two years then fired.

I hope something comes of it because a ****** like Campbell deserves to burn. However, 13 months passed already and barely a peep... they are doing a good job so far at keeping it quiet.

Edited by Shoreline, 15 November 2010 - 06:45 AM.

[Cicada]

This was published in TheStar a year before last month..

http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/nhl/article/708431--nhl-plotted-to-fire-pro-union-official


I hope something comes of it because a ****** like Campbell deserves to burn. However, 13 months passed already and barely a peep... they are doing a good job so far at keeping it quiet.

yeah, but the onus of that article was related to the actual complaint... they never went any deeper and actually looked into the emails and what else they say..

the info has been out there for a year and it took a blogger a year to flesh out the details

[cusimano_brothers]

Here you go; maybe Campbell was hanging onto the emails for his autobiography.

[edicius]

Thought this was an interesting mention on that blog entry too:

I mentioned the Savard thing on Twitter and @Texas_Gal, a Boston lawyer (I think Twitter is made up entirely of journalists, bloggers and lawyers) points out that Matt Cooke wasn’t suspended for concussing Marc Savard last year. Did Campbell’s apparent loathing of Savard play into it?

Total paradigm shift for me. Could it be that Campbell wasn't slobbering all over the Penguins, but instead, holding a grudge against Savard?

If this really picks up steam, I give it until X-Mas before Campbell resigns.

[Travis]

It deeply saddens me that a man of Campbell's stature doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're".

Your being ridiculous.

Honestly, though, these e-mails are unreal. For all of the reasons listed above, Campbell has to go. Obviously he won't, but I don't want anyone with the grammatical skills of someone at Friday night roller skating at the head of my favorite sport.

Based on what I've read, I'd love to see ol' Colin try and take a stab at the word, 'definitely'.

[cusimano_brothers]

[55fan]

Let me get this straight: Campbell is writing e-mails which he assumes will be for the people to whom he is sending them and not read by others, and people are appalled because his grammar and spelling are terrible. On the other hand, people post here on a public forum every day with terrible grammar and spelling, and it is considered perfectly normal.

Which leads me to my question: How do people get ahold of these e-mails? Don't people delete? Do they get passed on? Are the accounts hacked? How do things like this become public?