His official title in the league directory no longer is operative. This was the week in which Colin Campbell first and foremost became the NHL’s Cleaner, in charge of dust-busting every single potential scandal under the rug, never to be seen or dealt with again.
Let’s face it. Five years into its proclaimed “partnership” with the players, the NHL has become a monolithic power, unopposed and unchallenged (except by a foolhardy litigant named Jim Balsillie), dictated on the business side by Gary Bettman and Bill Daly, ruled on the hockey side by Campbell, whose decisions become more personal, more quixotic, less credible and thus less worthy of respect by the day.
It’s beyond me why anyone would believe that Stephane Auger’s version of the truth with one day to prepare a story is any more credible than Alex Burrows’ version related immediately after the fact — that the ref told him before the game that he was going to get him because of a prior incident, and did with three third-period penatlies.
Burrows dives. He’s an agitator, apparently some Western Conference version of what Sean Avery used to be before he was McMurphy’d during the offseason. So what? Does that mean he’s a liar?
Well, apparently so, and not only marked so by Campbell’s absurd rush to judgment, but by the analysis of the dozens of so-called journalists who refused to believe that Auger the authority figure would ever have been so bold as to announce his intention to abuse his power in a pre-game chat with Burrows.
Let me be clear. I have no idea whether Burrows or Auger is telling a tale that’s closer to the truth of what transpired in the moments before the Canucks’ game Monday night against Nashville, but I also have no reason whatsoever to believe Auger more than Burrows. None.
Anyone who watched Avery play last season after returning to the Rangers knows that certain NHL officials work games with personal agendas. Anyone who saw referees ignore repeated flagrant fouls committed against Avery recognizes that those charged with enforcing the law often took the law into their own hands.
Everyone saw it, including Campbell, and he did nothing about it.
Beyond that, Auger put on one of the most disgraceful officiating displays I have ever witnessed. This was on Dec. 31, 2000 in Phoenix, during, in fact, his rookie season as an NHL referee.
That was the night that the Rangers’ Theo Fleury was called for five penalties by Auger — four minors, including an unsportsmanlike conduct, plus a 10-minute misconduct — while Paul Devorski, the senior referee working the game, called none.
From the moment Fleury gestured to the bench in anger after being called for a hooking penalty late in the first period of that New Year’s Eve Debacle in the Desert, Auger saw to it that No. 14 was finished.
I have never forgotten it, just as I will never forget Avery last spring. So when I am presented with Burrows’ story, Auger’s story and the NHL’s public whitewash of the matter, I choose to believe my eyes.
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Then there was Cleaner Campbell’s astounding admission to NHL Live that his decision not to suspend Sergei Gonchar for his leaping, blindside elbow to the head of Minnesota’s Cal Clutterbuck was influenced by a combination of the Pittsburgh defenseman’s prior record and the fact that he had been checked hard prior to his retaliatory act.
“[Clutterbuck] hit Gonchar hard into the boards prior to that — very hard,” Campbell said. “That could have been boarding. That could have been charging. It wasn’t.
“So Gonchar, he’s on the receiving end more than the giving end . . . we don’t feel [based on] prior history that Gonchar deserves to be suspended.”
In other words, getting checked hard albeit legally, is now a defense for a retaliatory shot to the head. Odd how that didn’t seem to be a defense for Chris Simon when he chopped Ryan Hollweg across the face with his stick on March 8, 2007 after being slammed into the glass by the Ranger on a play that, as The Cleaner might put it, could have been a hit from behind but wasn’t, could have been boarding but wasn’t.
Beyond that, it is now stated policy that it isn’t what you do as much as who you are that is a primary factor in supplementary discipline decisions.
Stephane Auger says he doesn’t believe that.
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Receiving far less notice — if any at all — was The Cleaner’s decision to give Ed Jovanovski the very same and very lenient two-game suspension for elbowing John Taveras in the head last Saturday night, less than two months after giving the Phoenix defenseman two games for concussing Andrew Ebbett with a blow to the head on Dec. 8.
Of course, it’s not like there could be a conflict of interest or anything at play here, what with the NHL VP adjudicating cases pertaining to a team the NHL owns and operates.
How do we know that?
Stephane Auger says so.
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This just in. An HBO documentary on the Flyers’ Broad Street Bullies Cup champions of 1974 and 1975 will be telecast in May. Slap Shots has learned that Dale Rolfe will be hosting the MSG viewing party.