Other complaints about Brendan Shanahan

Despite an entertaining first week of action on the ice, it seems like all anyone wants to talk about these days is Brendan Shanahan. After an initial honeymoon period that faded quickly, the NHL's senior vice-president of player safety and hockey operations has come under heavy fire over his recent rulings on player discipline.

Don Cherry has been the highest profile critic of Shanahan's harsher approach to suspensions, but he's certainly not alone. Media reports have indicated that at least some general managers are uncomfortable with Shanahan's rulings, and plenty of fans have voiced their concerns as well.

At the very least, you might assume that his discipline decisions are the only area where Shanahan is feeling the heat. But you'd be wrong. According to my top secret sources, there's a long list of issues and grievances with Shanahan that date back to the early days of his career.

Here's a sample of some of the hockey world's other complaints about Brendan Shanahan.

• In a cruel practical joke, spent his entire rookie year with the Devils whispering moronic coaching strategies into the ear of sleeping roommate John MacLean.
  
  
• Completely screwed up his shootout attempt at the Nagano Olympics when he failed to be Wayne Gretzky.
  
  
• Has been an NHL VP for almost two years now and has spent lots of time with Gary Bettman, yet has apparently still not taken him aside and convinced him to stop doing that "get overly defensive and make the whole press conference uncomfortable" thing.
  
  
• Whenever I get a penalty I don't agree with and then do the secret signal where I tug on my ear three times in the penalty box, the referee still has a job the next day. (Submitted by Gregory Campbell.)
  

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Rejected ideas from the NHL's research and development camp

John Ferguson Jr.'s ice-painting career was
the most successful hockey job he ever had.

Various changes to the rules, arena and equipment will be on the agenda this week when the NHL holds its Research, Development and Orientation (RDO) Camp under the watchful eye of league senior vice president Brendan Shanahan.

First held in 2005 and re-introduced as an annual event last year, the RDO camp gives the league's hockey operations department an opportunity to test changes during live game scenarios. Some of those changes will become permanent, while most will provide a few hours' worth of raised eyebrows before being forgotten.

But while the final schedule of planned experiments has been widely reported, it turns out the original list was slightly different. I've come into possession of a top-secret league memo addressed to Shanahan that outlines some additional proposals that apparently didn't quite make the final cut.

***

B-Shan…

Below please find a list of rules I'd like to see tested at the upcoming RDO camp. Some of these came from folks I've been talking to around the league, and others are my own ideas. I know you're working on your own list, so it's your call on which ones you go with in the end.

And of course, if you think any of my ideas are so good they should skip the RDO altogether and just go straight into the rulebook, that's fine too. I can totally make that happen.

Your pal,
Gary

• To cut down on premeditated "payback" brawls, refuse to allow players to fight after a faceoff unless they can produce a handwritten permission note from Mario Lemieux.
  
  
• Comprehensively test the new headshot rules, and then survey the players afterwards to see if they feel like they understand them; if any of them do, back to the drawing board.
  
  
• Consider banning any music from being played inside the arena at any time, because it might interrupt your neighbour's precious beauty sleep and then they'll call the cops on you. (Idea suggested by Sean Avery.)
  
  
• Remove the trapezoid behind the net in an effort to increase/decrease whatever it is that having a trapezoid behind the net was supposed to decrease/increase in the first place.
  

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Surprises from the NHL's brief filed in the NFL labour dispute

Everyone who's really serious about
reducing concussions, raise your hand...

Football fans are having a rough off-season. With a messy NFL labour dispute heading into its third month with no end in sight, fans now have reason to fear that the league may lose part of the upcoming season to a work stoppage, if not the entire year.

Of course, that's a feeling hockey fans know all too well. And this week, the NHL found itself linked to the football labour dispute in a more concrete way. The league reportedly made an appearance in the protracted courtroom battle between the NFL and it's decertified players association, filing a legal brief urging a judge to side with the owners.

The move caught many observers off-guard, and raised an obvious question: What sort of insight could the NHL really have to offer into football's problems?

Plenty, as it turns out. I managed to obtain a top secret copy of the NHL's brief, and found that it contains detailed advice that NFL owners will no doubt find invaluable. Here's a selection of highlights from the filing:

• The cover page of the document has a note in what appears to be NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's handwriting reading "Should I have heard of these guys?"
  
  
• The brief contains a lengthy section titled "How to keep a straight face if the players start to swear that they'll never accept a hard salary cap."
  
  
• The league includes a helpful suggestion that the NFL consider generating some publicity by holding an outdoor game at a football stadium.
  
  
• From force of habit, the brief includes multiple references to the Winnipeg Cardinals.
  

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A look inside Colin Campbell's inbox

"Wait, these e-mails seem fake. I didn't
know Marc Savard had a blog..."

The NHL was plunged into controversy this week after three-year-old internal emails between director of hockey operations Colin Campbell and former director of officiating Stephen Walkom were exposed by Toronto blogger Tyler Dellow.

At worst, the emails indicate that Campbell could be biased. At best, they paint him as a hands-on boss who was sending Walkom a steady stream of frank feedback on how games should be called.

Campbell may not have learned from past mistakes, as explosive new emails between Campbell and his staff have emerged today.

From: Colin Campbell
To: Stephen Walkom
Hey Stephen, did you happen to catch the Bruins game? I have several pages of feedback on the officiating I'd like to discuss with you.

From: Stephen Walkom
To: Colin Campbell
Colin, we've been over this. I quit as the director of officiating in 2009 and went back to refereeing. You need to email my replacement, Terry Gregson.

From: Colin Campbell
To: Stephen Walkom
Right, right, I forgot. Say, refresh my memory, why did you quit again?

From: Stephen Walkom
To: Colin Campbell
Oh, no reason.

From: Colin Campbell
To: Terry Gregson
T-Greg!

From: Terry Gregson
To: Colin Campbell
Oh bloody hell. Um, I mean…. Vacation alert! I will be out of the office, returning in … uh… May.

From: Colin Campbell
To: Terry Gregson
Nice try Terry! Look, I want to chat about last night's Bruins game. I've started watching every single one of their games this year, for no particular reason, and I'm not crazy about how some of them are being called.

From: Terry Gregson
To: Colin Campbell
OK. Just remember, no names. We don't need some blogger digging around again. Keep it generic.

From: Colin Campbell
To: Terry Gregson
Of course, Terry. I think I know the rules. So anyway, did you see that one play involving the 6-foot-9 Slovak defenceman?

From: Terry Gregson
To: Colin Campbell
OK. See, right there Colie, this is the sort of thing we're talking about.

From: Colin Campbell
To: Terry Gregson
What? That could be anybody!

From: Terry Gregson
To: Stephen Walkom
Have I told you lately that I hate you?

From: Stephen Walkom
To: Terry Gregson
You're on your own, buddy.

From: Colin Campbell
To: Terry Gregson
What's the matter Terry, did you decide to stop replying to my emails? Ha ha!

From: Colin Campbell
To: Terry Gregson
(Seriously, though, if you decided to stop replying to my emails then you're fired.)

From: Terry Gregson
To: Colin Campbell
Sorry, were you emailing me? Strangest thing, I haven't been getting them. They must go straight into my spam filter or something.

From: Terry Gregson
To: Stephen Walkom
By the way, thanks for your help with setting up that spam filter.

From: Stephen Walkom
To: Terry Gregson
It was the least I could do.

From: Colin Campbell
To: Terry Gregson
Really? I swear, everybody I try to email ends up telling me that. There must be some kind of problem with my computer. I'm going to contact tech support and see what's going on.

From: Colin Campbell
To: Tech support
Hi there. I bought a laptop from you guys this year and I'm having email problems.

From: Dean Warren
To: Colin Campbell
Hello sir, my name is Dean. How can I assist you today?

From: Colin Campbell
To: Dean Warren
… Dean?

From: Dean Warren
To: Colin Campbell
Oh. Um. Hmm. This is awkward.

From: Colin Campbell
To: Dean Warren
Hey, look, at least you landed on your feet. No hard feelings, right?

From: Dean Warren
To: Colin Campbell
[Your email was undeliverable, as it triggered the recipient's spam filter.]

From: Colin Campbell
To: Dean Warren
Oh come on!

From: Colin Campbell
To: All NHL referees and alumni
OK everyone, listen up. I've been emailing all of you with detailed feedback about calls against Gregory Cam-uh, against a mysterious unnamed NHL player. But nobody ever replies! Kerry, what's the matter, can't take five minutes from your precious book tour to chat with an old friend?

From: Kerry Fraser
To: Colin Campbell
What? Sorry, I didn't see your email.

From: Colin Campbell
To: Kerry Fraser
Let me guess… spam filter?

From: Kerry Fraser
To: Colin Campbell
Spam what? No, I just have this bad habit of not seeing really important things for no particular reason.

From: Terry Gregson
To: Colin Campbell
So anyway, I've got to go and, um, set my computer on fire.

From: Dean Warren
To: Colin Campbell
Why am I even still on this list?

From: Stephen Walkom
To: Colin Campbell
Unsubscribe.

From: Colin Campbell
To: All NHL referees and alumni
Fine, jerks. I'll find something else to do.

From: Facebook
To: Gregory Campbell
Colin Campbell just tagged you in the photo album "Squeaky clean hits that should never have been penalties".

From: Gregory Campbell
To: Colin Campbell
THIS IS NOT HELPING, DAD!