Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Imagine, if you can, being Colin Campbell these days.

Among your many tasks with the National Hockey League is the job of deciding when to levy supplementary discipline for a rule infraction.

Regardless of who that player is, and how heinous their on-ice crime may have been, immediately one of the thirty teams, and their fan base, and the media that covers them, will believe you to be a complete idiot.

If you choose to suspend that player, but only a couple of games, then the team, fans and media of the player aggrieved will also believe you to be a complete idiot.

If that player transcends his team, then more fans, and more media, will share that opinion.

As Colin Campbell, when you have had to let a number of on-ice incidents slide because of a variety of factors, then you are accused of applying a “wheel-of-justice” approach to discipline.

Regardless of the logic that you apply to each individual incident, your work as the league disciplinarian will be looked at as a whole, as the media and fans apply the auteur theory to your rap sheet.

You cannot win working under these conditions, because there is no way you’re going to come close to pleasing the majority of hockey people.

So, instead, you have to do what you think is right, what you think is just.

It doesn’t help things when you pass on slapping Matt Cooke of the Penguins on the wrist for his blind-side hit on the Bruins’ Marc Savard…and then only a week later, the league’s premier superstar, Alex Ovechkin, forces you to suspend him for a couple of games for basically a hit from behind on the Blackhawks’ Brian Campbell, on a nationally televised game between two of the league’s top teams.

It doesn’t help when the likes of Washington Capitals’ owner Ted Leonsis publicly muses about the Ovechkin hit, and wonders why the NHL MVP is told to sit for a couple of games, but Cooke gets nothing.  (Then again, as good an owner as Leonsis is, nothing is ever wrong with his team.  Every loss can be explained.  Ahh, newbies).

It doesn’t help when the chattering classes of the internet point out that your son, who plays for the Florida Panthers, will “benefit” from not having to face Ovie when they play the Capitals this week, as ridiculous a claim as there is, but some still went there   (Ahh, idiots).

I don’t know about other North American sports, but it’s always amazed me how hockey fans honestly believe they each know what is best for the sport.  That passion, as blind and as pig-headed as it often is, reminds me of the passion of European soccer fans.  Now, we haven’t taken to the worst excesses of that species yet, though a stroll through the myriad of team-themed on-line sites may suggest those days are inching closer.

Personally, I seem to disagree with Colin Campbell on roughly a third of his calls, though all things considered, I thought the league would pass on a suspension for Ovechkin; a plausible argument can be made either way.

I also have a theory that many in the NHL, maybe even Campbell himself, like the very rough stuff, the play that goes over the line.  No, they don’t want to see anybody seriously hurt, but a little ultra-violence never hurt the ratings now, did it?

What I do like about Campbell is that he sticks his chin out there after making a judgement, and stands by it.  It doesn’t appear as though he sticks his finger in the air to judge which way the wind is blowing, despite what you or I might personally believe.  The two-game suspension to Ovechkin might be an exception, but hey, we all answer to other people in whatever line of work we are in, so maybe his hand was forced.

Some will say that is a good thing.  Some will say idiot.

The life of Colin Campbell.

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s