Snitches

You might want to take a seat. I have news.

I don't know if you have heard or not, but in some emails from within NHL headquarters three years ago someone had the audacity to claim that a certain player, Marc Savard, has a proclivity towards accentuating penalties in an effort to buy calls.

Yes. Diving. Or being "a fake artist" as Colin Campbell so eloquently worded it.

I am shocked ... let me repeat ... SHOCKED that such accusations would be vocalized.

No one, especially Bruins fans, have ever accused Savard of diving. Don't even try Googling it, it's a fact.

In all my years as a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins, (particularly the last five) I have never heard even the slightest hint of such impropriety in our fair sport.

Have You no respect for the sanctity of the game, sir?

Exactly what do you even know about this young man? On what authority can you make such incendiary statements?

Colin Campbell, coach of NY Rangers when they drafting Marc Savard in 1995

And even if, dare I say it, atrocities such as diving had infiltrated the game of ice hockey, have you not heard a little phrase that goes something along the lines of "snitches get stitches"?

Why would you rat out a guy like that Colie? Do we really need that kind of interoffice gossip flying around the NHL. Don't be a Chatty Cathy.

I mean, what business of this Stephen character is it what Savard does?

 Stephen Walkom, Director of Officiating. 

Keep that kind of garbage to yourself Mr. Campbell. We don't need those foul accusations sullying our great game.


But hold on. I'd hate to leave it like that.

As any great disciplinarian would, I, like Mr. Campbell, know that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

That's why I'd like to congratulate Campbell. Why might you ask? For being a good father.

In those same e-mails Colin did something else. Something any loving dad would do, use his powerful position to lean on the governing body that oversees an official that, according to the hometown radio broadcast, made a questionable call against his son.

It's touching really. Just makes me want to give my own dad a call and thank him for the behind the scenes bureaucratic pressure he applied to help me get to where I am today. Thanks pops.

And so, in closing, I say this to you Mr. Campbell: A little less meddling in other peoples business and a little more being a super dad.