Colin Campbell is Killing the NHL

The NHL needs to enforce the rules consistently, and Colin Campbell will ensure that never happens. The hit by Chara on Pacioretty was deliberate and nasty. But the Boston Bruins had purchased several insurance policies.

First, they hired Campbell's son Gregory. After the hit on Savard, the Bruins knew that Campbell was for sale. Savard angered Campbell when Campbell was the incompetent manager of the NY Rangers. Campbell let many great players go, most of them Russian (such as Zubov), but none left with more rancor than Savard. Savard wanted more money and Campbell would not give it to him. Years later, Savard had proved Campbell wrong by becoming one of the game's best players, when Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke effectively ended his career with a deliberate concussion-causing hit.

Zubov was let go because he angered Campbell by insisting on not playing with a broken wrist.

Colin hated Savard because his son Gregory had hit Savard in the face with his hockey stick. In a note to referees, Campbell called Savard "a little fake artist," in effect calling open season on hits to Savard.

Cooke received no punishment for ending Savard's career in March of 2010. During the summer of 2010, the Bruins acquired superstar Nathan Horton and also Gregory Campbell from Florida in exchange for several valuable draft picks and underrated defenseman Dennis Wideman.

In Campbell, the Bruins acquired not only a fourth line player earning less than a million dollars per year. They also acquired a license to kill from Colin Campbell.

The Bruins increased their investment in Colin Campbell by helping him get a contract extension that's work $35 million over five years.

The NHL has to change.

Campbell's policies are a joke to some, but they cause real harm to the league, the players, and the sport.

Even journalists in Toronto, hockey's corporate HQ, are losing their patience. "The league did once kick out two players – both with the Bruins – for life. But that was for gambling back in the 1940s. In 2011, it is the league itself that is gambling. But not on games – on lives."

The game is getting ridiculous and Campbell's part of the problem. "If it wasn't embarrassing, it was at least another extremely awkward moment for the NHL, vis-à-vis its Director of Hockey Operations, Colin Campbell, and the involvement of his son, Gregory, in Thursday night's WWE-style game between Boston and Dallas. It had to be awkward for Commissioner Gary Bettman to see his chief of discipline forced to recuse himself from meting out punishments for a game that had several fights -- three within the first four seconds -- and one cheap, blindside hit that earned its perpetrator a four-game suspension."

Mario Lemieux has threatened to leave. "If the events relating to Friday night reflect the state of the league, I need to rethink whether I want to be a part of it."

Lemieux needs to stay, Campbell needs to leave, and someone in hockey journalism or among hockey's owners needs to call out Colin Campbell.