It makes me sick to my stomach that this is acceptable, but in this case, the General Managers are as much to blame as Campbell is. Campbell can only enforce the rules, not invent them. More pressure needs to be put on the GMs to change the rules. Only then can all the excuses be removed from Campbell.

I’m just so pissed off at the whole pack of jerks running this thing. It’s almost as if they are hoping that they can retire before someone is killed, then it would be someone else’s problem.

That said, since Cooke has been in the league there hasn’t been much seperating him from Sean Avery in the way he plays, he’s out there for a reason, to hit, and take hits. He’s not a skilled forward playing at a higher than conceivable pace, he’s an instigator and irritant who will take these cheap shots if they’re available to him. He’s been suspended once this year for a high hit before on rangers forward, Artem Anisimov, and I’d frankly be shocked if this suspension isn’t longer than 2 games. Richards should have been suspended as well for his hit on booth, but because of Colin Campbell’s incompetency in doing anything right, I feel like bringing that up is useless at this point. Marc Savard isn’t a small name in the league, I’d personally hate the league if Cooke isn’t suspended for AT LEAST 6 games, being as how he’s a repeat offender. Jeff Marek commented last night that there’s no grounds for suspension at all, no penalty on the play, no need for a suspension.

Which got me thinking. Given how fast things like this tend to happen in hockey, should we give refs the benefit of the doubt that they’re going to make EVERY single call in every single game and not miss one? If that’s what we’re supposed to do, I think we’re missing an important piece, and that’s the fact that refs are human, and humans screw up, but in Colin Campbell’s case, when you get to view the hit 1000s of times and still make the WRONG call time in and time out, well then, you don’t deserve your job. If Colin Campbell were in any other line of work, he wouldve been fired at least 50 times this year alone.

Here’s to hoping for a nice long suspension for Cooke.

#1- “the question really is, when a shoulder makes contact with the head, is that going to be termed illegal – because right now, it’s legal” – Colin Campbell

#2, in reference to blatant head shots, like the Ted Green/Wayne Maki incident of ‘69 and Dave Brown’s cross-check to the head of Tomas Sandstrom in ‘87 Campbell has this to say:

“We don’t have these things anymore….we’re talking about cross-checks to the head, sucker punches to the head.”

Campbell claims that league crack downs have eliminated this sort of thing.

So what worries me about these quotes?

On the first, it sounds like he has no intention of punishing a hit that is currently deemed as legal. At best, another slap on the wrist for hitting him while unsuspecting may be the best we can expect.

On the second quote, it appears as though Campbell’s memory is fading – fast. He says that we no longer see cross checks to the head, or sucker punches. But wait…didn’t he suspend Daniel Briere for cross checking Scott Hannan in the head in November 2009? Wait, there’s more. He also suspended Carcillo for sucker punching Matt Bradley in December of 2009.

Perhaps we just saw the explanation for Campbell’s inconsistency – he can’t remember what precedent he has set!

Let us pray.

I still say one way to decrease suspensions is to lift the instigator rule to make players more accountable for their actions. Its a start.

And while it might just be how Cooke’s face is, but Ray Ferraro bashed Lapierre for smirking on the bench. Cooke was standing there with the same smirk.

Cooke is a repeat offender, and was last suspended in November 2009 for head hunting. He doesn’t get it, doesn’t want to it, and won’t get it. Of course, the genius Colin Campbell has done a wonderful job of tying his own hands behind his back by not suspending Richards for the same thing. Cooke deserves at least 10 games for this callous hit, and I pray that Campbell will do the right thing. If he gave Max Lapierre 4 games for his hit (which I’m fine with, in a vacuum because it was a crappy hit, but other FAR worse hits have gone unpunished, or given lighter suspensions), then Cooke should have the book thrown at him.

I don’t know what the record for suspensions in a year is, but it’s now approaching the mid-20’s for this season, which is far too high in my view.