The pen can be as mighty as the hockey stick

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/02/2016 (3522 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Why does everything appear so easy from the outside looking in?

I used to watch the Winnipeg Jets play and then follow the media outlets and the stories they provided, critiquing their performance at my leisure.

Surely I could be a top-six forward (in relative writing terms) if I really wanted to, or so I thought. I found out I’m more a fourth-line grinder after a large obstacle came up when I actually got thrown in the Free Press lineup.

As a former NHL player, I remember being on the other side of it, and while I’ve been able to overcome my instinct to protect my brothers in arms, it’s still a bit of a struggle to call out a Jets player.

While playing junior hockey for the London Knights of the now-Ontario Hockey League, I was the first-round pick referred to as “Scott the Terrible.” That is a tough thing to hear as a 17-year-old trying to gain his confidence. By my NHL draft year, the headline read “Scott the Terrible Now Scott Terrific.” They were right in both scenarios.

In my Jets years, I had good and bad said about me, too; and while I thought the writers were tough, they were fair.

I recall the reaction when then-Jets 1.0 general manager John Ferguson had a particularly tough decision to make: he was allowed to protect only two skaters from our powerful World Hockey Association’s Avco Cup championship team when the franchise entered the NHL. It came down to me, Kent Nilsson, Morris Lukowich and Terry Ruskowski.

The night before Fergie made his choices, my agent told me Nilsson was out, Lukowich was in, and it was between Ruskowski and me as the second player. I had great respect for Roscoe and assumed it would be him, so I was shocked when I was selected to stay.

I wasn’t the only one, as a Jets fan from those days recently informed me on Twitter. He asked me if I realized how many people yelled at that point, “They kept Campbell over Ruskowski?!”

Basically, my reply was I was the loudest voice screaming that.

My point is while I may have pleaded with the current Jets coaching staff to remove Mark Stuart from the penalty-killing unit in a column awhile back, I’m not putting the blame on the player. He’s trying his best (as I was). It’s the coaches who are responsible for putting players in the right position to succeed. It’s also the GM’s job to provide the coaches with enough good players to do that.

Players can only give it their best effort.

I love reading stories about a particular player, how he got here, his dreams, etc.; as much as he’s willing to share.

Unfortunately, today’s daily reporters who follow the Jets have to deal with media scrums for the most part and a parade of players saying nothing of substance. From that, we, of course, get a lot fewer player stories.

I wish you knew them better.

So as I’m hacking (with words) like any Jets fourth-liner who puts his heart and soul in it does at opposition sticks, remember a general manager hired that player and coaches are putting him in those spots he is sinking in.

Bad moves

We will be looking at both good and bad moves throughout the lineup, and who’s responsible for the results over the coming weeks.

A hockey player is either just the start of a good story or the beginning of a bad one. He is not the one who should take all the heat.

Finally, a comment on social media recently led to quite a discussion, as it revolved around me possibly being muffled (not allowed to say bad things about the Jets) in the future as I’ve been fairly critical of the squad recently, even suggesting team owner Mark Chipman needed to change his approach.

Free Press sports editor Steve Lyons immediately called this ridiculous, saying on the FP’s online Second Screen feature during a recent Jets game the reason he hired me was to tell it like it is.

That fits with a conversation I had with Lyons as he and I were trying to figure out if this column would work. I was worried about the aforementioned perception regarding “muffling,” so I asked Steve what I would be allowed to write about.

He told me to write anything I wanted, and then asked, “What do you want to write about?”

In a straight voice, I said, “Kevin Cheveldayoff is the worst GM in the NHL.”

He said if that’s what I believe, then I should write it. That response was good enough for me — even though that isn’t my belief about Cheveldayoff.

While I applaud his re-signing of Dustin Byfuglien and the team’s good prospect pool, I still need to see a lot more to figure out where Cheveldayoff’s headed, other than this “draft-and-develop” plan every team has to use in a salary-capped NHL world.

The reality is everything under the Jets banner has to be looked at. (The team’s pathetic effort Tuesday, a 2-1 road loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, was the last straw.)

Any way you slice it, it’ll be an interesting few months for Jets fans. By the fall, I’m not so sure.

 

Chosen ninth overall by the NHL’s St. Louis Blues and first overall by the WHA’s Houston Aeros in 1977, Scott Campbell has now been drafted by the Winnipeg Free Press to play a new style of game.

Twitter: @NHL_Campbell