Dear Mr. Campbell:

Reportedly during a radio interview yesterday from the NHL general managers’ meeting, you responded to a question about possible discipline regarding Matt Cooke’s hit on Marc Savard Sunday by saying “it wasn’t an elbow.”

Please. Let’s watch the video one more time.

Cooke could have hit Savard with a solid open-ice body check. Instead, he deliberately moved his arm so it made contact with Marc’s head. Whether it was his elbow, shoulder, knee, foot, stick or a tire iron makes no difference (for the record, you can see that it’s neither precisely his elbow nor his shoulder, but somewhere in between that makes the connection). Are you going to make a decision on a suspension based on a few inches? Matt Cooke deliberately attempted to injure Marc Savard, and succeeded. No ifs, and, or buts about it.

I’m certainly not counting on you giving Cooke the 10-game suspension he deserves. Not after you handed Derek Boogard a pathetic two games for a hideous knee-on-knee hit. Not after you ignored Tomas Plekanec butt-ending David Krejci in the face. NHL discipline is, in a word, a joke. But as Marc Savard suffers the pain of a Grade 2 concussion, maybe, just maybe, this time, you’ll do the right thing.

Just imagine this: What if that was Sidney Crosby being carried off the ice on a stretcher? Because if you don’t stop this now, it very well may be, in the very near future.

Sincerely yours,
Savvy