Colin Campbell’s pathetic record; U.S. papers pass on Vcr.; audiences

Very little of what Mike Milbury says makes sense to me, but he was right about one thing on Saturday night.

  The NHL does not need new rules to address the worst of the head shots – the predatory, blindside attacks.

   “The rules are already in place,” he said on Hockey Night In Canada. “There’s enough power for Colin Campbell to make a change.”

  Not said by Milbury is that Campbell, the NHL’s senior vice-president in charge of discipline, won’t do anything.

   That’s not a problem for Milbury, of course, because he describes himself as a “Neanderthal” who likes things just the way they are.

  Still, he’s correct when we says that for the most vicious of the head attacks we don’t need the NHL general managers wringing their hands — and dragging their feet (apologies for the mixed metaphor) — over how to legislate new rules, as they did last week in Toronto.

   Had Campbell adequately addressed the issue three years ago, we wouldn’t have a problem today.

   The league, after all, has rules against deliberate attempts to injure as well as checking from behind. Campbell could have applied those rules to suspend the perpetrators delivering blind-side hits.

  The following gruesome scene is Colby Armstrong’s attack on Trevor Letowski three years ago. Letowski didn’t have the puck, was hit from behind and suffered a concussion. There was no suspension.

 

 As you can see, the hit is very similar to the Mike Richards attack on David Booth a few weeks ago. Like Armstrong, Richards received nothing.

 

  Campbell’s performance as the league’s sheriff in town has been pitifully inept. Predatory head shots have increased alarmingly during his tenure. The league’s excuse for doing nothing — that rules didn’t exist to address the problem — was at best disingenuous; at worst, a flat out lie.

   Still, Campbell has been given an easy ride by the mainstream hockey media. They like “Colie,” because he’s a good guy. They seem to actually believe he’s trying to do an adequate job.

   During his appearance on Hockey Night on Saturday, Campbell showed some clips of head shots, but they were all direct collisions and, therefore, clean under the present rules. He did not use, as an example, one blind-side attack.

  It was a grudging, mealy-mouthed acknowledgement of a problem. He asserted that it was important to “educate” the victims of head shots, presumably about keeping their heads up. There was a hint of condescension to this, the old blame-the-victim mentality. I’d suggest players are very well aware of the importance of keeping their heads up by the time they reach the NHL. What they struggle with is seeing out of the back of their heads.

   Campbell, despite the lack of criticism of him directly, has become increasingly isolated on this issue, as has the league position of doing nothing. I’ve never heard TSN’s Bob McKenzie call out Campbell, nor do I expect to, but McKenzie has done some good work on reporting the seriousness of head injuries.

   The New York Times hockey blog has been pounding away at this issue for several weeks. Even some of the more enlightened ex-jock hockey commentators, TSN’s Ray Ferraro being one, are starting to raise questions. According to Hockey Night’s Glenn Healy, 76 per cent of the NHL players are in favour of penalizing a player who delivers a head shot.

   Campbell and the general managers will most certainly do something, but not immediately, of course. Toronto Maple Leaf general manager Brian Burke explained last week that they wouldn’t want to confuse the fans by introducing a new rule in mid-season. As if punishing a player for a cheap-shot is so terribly confusing.

   There will, in all likelihood, be a minor crackdown on blind-side hits, but nothing done on head shots generally.

   And Campbell will continue on the job. A better place would be permanent retirement at the farm.

U.S. newspapers say no to Vancouver

 The Canadian media is going gaga over the Vancouver Olympics, but, in the United States, newspapers will cut back dramatically on their coverage.

  The online publication, SportsBusiness Journal, reports that U.S. newspapers will send far fewer journalists to Vancouver than to previous Winter Games.

  In 1992, 103 newspapers were given credentials to cover the Albertville Olympics. Only 68 have been credentialed for Vancouver.

  SBJ reports that the digital media has grabbed a larger share of the accreditations. Yahoo! had one credentialed journalist for Turin in 2006, but will have 21 for Vancouver.

  ESPN.com which didn’t have a staffer at Turin, will have seven employees assigned to Vancouver.

  But, the Washington Post, which sent 10 journalists to Turin, will have only three in Vancouver.

  The newspaper cutbacks are the result of the grim U.S. economy and the on-going financial problems of newspapers.

A CFL playoff audience record

  TSN pulled in big audiences, one a record, for its two CFL playoff telecasts on the weekend.

   The BBM Canadian overnight measurements (the final number could change slightly) showed the Edmonton Eskimos-Calgary Stampeders West conference semi-final drawing 1.55 million viewers. That’s a record audience for a conference semi-final and up 44 per cent from last year’s 862,000 for B.C. Lions-Saskatchewan Roughriders.

  The East semi-final, B.C.-Hamilton Tiger-Cats, which went into overtime, drew 1.36 million. That’s a whopping 55 per cent increase over last year’s 610,000 for Esks-Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

   Audience figures have increased dramatically since September, when the new Portable People Meter system of measurement was instituted. It draws from a larger sample base and is more accurate. Live sports shows and children’s programming, in which groups watch, have shown the largest increases.

  Hockey: The CBC’s audience of 1.808 million for the 7 p.m. ET Hockey Night in Canada game represented a drop of about 150,000 viewers, mainly because the network aired just one broadcast, Calgary Flames-Toronto Maple Leafs, compared to three on the previous weekend – one national and two regional broadcasts. Prime time curling on TSN also would have set into the hockey audience.

  The CBC Saturday afternoon game, New York Rangers-Ottawa Senators, was watched by 579,000. The second game of the evening doubleheader, Vancouver Canucks-Colorado Avalanche, drew 876,000.

  The 6:30 p.m. ET pre-game, Scotiabank Hockey Tonight, continues to do very well. It pulled in 632,000.

NFL: CTV 1 p.m. ET, Sunday, regional: 593,000; Rogers Sportsnet regional 4 p.m., 208,000; City-TV, 4 p.m. 485,000; TSN, Sunday night, New England-Indianapolis, 621,000; pre-game, 467,000.

Curling: TSN, 1 p.m., Saturday, Olympic trial preliminaries, 455,000; 8 p.m., 378,000.

 NBA: TSN2, Sunday, 8 p.m., Toronto Raptors-Phoenix Suns, 191,000.

  Figure skating: Skate America (pairs free), CBC, Saturday, 5 p.m. ET, 399,000; Sunday, 2 p.m., men’s free, women’s free, 293,000.

 The bogus Leaf ceremonies

  Were you moved by the Toronto Maple Leafs’ tribute to the “famous” Hound Line? Surely you knew, as the ACC’s public address announcer Andy Frost certainly did, that the Leaf line was famous in the 1980s, despite consisting of one good player (Wendel Clark), and two who had some talent but no heart (Gary Leeman and Russ Courtnall). The line was famous all right – famously mediocre.

  The Leafs should put a stop these ridiculous pre-game ceremonies. Very little that has happened in this team’s history over the past 40 years is worth celebrating. No championships. Not even a berth in a Stanley Cup final. Guess how many Leaf players have been voted to the NHL’s first all-star team over the past 40 seasons? Two.

   In the 1980s, the Leafs were particularly inept. As Hockey Night’s Craig Simpson observed, the other team on the ice, the Calgary Flames, actually won a Cup in the 1980s.