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Colin Campbell & Bryan Lewis

Press conference from September 9, 1999

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Posted: Monday September 27, 1999 02:24 PM

Question: The two-referee system this year, obviously there is going to be more games where that will be in effect. Did you have numbers from last year as to the penalties for games that had two refs and games that had only one ref?

Bryan Lewis: Yes, we do. We had fewer penalties in the games that had two referees. For a while we ran very, very close. We ran very close in terms of overall penalty minutes. Our (game) times were two hours and 34 minutes with two referees and two hours and 35 minutes with one. Our penalties ran roughly 12.2 (for two) and 12.7 penalties per game. So they were very close, but the idea was there was fewer. I think the plus to the whole thing was the one point I mentioned earlier on that we found our games were overall quicker with two referees versus one.

Question: With the change or change back to no harm-no foul, are you happy to see that the refs are able to use their own judgment again and make the calls on their own regarding crease infractions?

Brayn Lewis: Our officials talked about this today from an extremely positive (standpoint). The fact is -- and the commissioner addressed it today -- that the judgments been given back to them. They related with the opportunity to do what they have been most familiar with, was to allow them to have the judgment. There hasn't been one official that spoke up in a negative manner about getting this back.

Question: I just curious if you could identify -- if you could define, rather -- incidental contact. I noticed quite often in your description of the new way of ruling this, you talk about contact that is not incidental. What exactly is incidental contact?

Bryan Lewis: Where it has no bearing. As an example, part of the message has to be delivered to the goalkeeper, you may from time to time get run into or bumped. There has to be no intent. This is just strictly an accident, and you still have an onus and -- the attacking player has an onus and responsibility to make some attempt to avoid. None of that has changed. That is a term we are using to indicate that it is -- I will say for want of a better terminology -- it is an accident, without any intent.

Question: Is this the last we are going to hear about the whole crease debate because this has been going on for about a decade now of different rulings. It seems every year or every other year about goaltenders in the crease. Is this the last one forever?

Bryan Lewis: Well, what do you say? I'd love to sit here and say, 'Yes, absolutely.' We would sincerely hope so, but you have got remember, rule changes have been made and made over the years to modify and make our game better. This is something to make our game better.

Easy answer to your question: Today, yes.

Part of our concern is if a goalie does get knocked on his butt, as it has been in the past, we have to reassure the goalies they are not fair game. That is still written in our book. So if there is any intent -- we talk about incidental -- if a goalie is knocked on his backside, that is more than incidental.

Question: I thought in your earlier summary of these rule changes that you said in fact maybe the protection of the goalies will be stiffened up, but the rule is the same, I take it, or will there be any window in there for supplemental discipline? If, say a same player is, a couple of times in two weeks or three weeks, will they be monitored the players that do have contact with goalies and it is not incidental?

Bryan Lewis: As an example here, we talked about what is incidental; what is not, or on purpose. Every time a player does something on purpose he has to be accountable. The official on the ice would say, 'That is two (minutes), that is 5, that is 5 and a game.' Then it goes to Colin Campbell or to Mike Murphy to address the habitual player or the person that does something very, very bad.

Colin Campbell: We will apply supplemental discipline in situations where we feel a player has run a goalie; gone to the crease too hard; even attempted to injure a goalie and didn't succeed. If we feel that in our judgment that a player is attempting to or has injured a goalie we will provide supplemental discipline. This is one of the reasons this rule was introduced years ago -- too many goalies were injured and we ended up with this crease review. We ended up where we were examining a toe in a crease, or out of the crease because goaltenders were being injured too often. That is one area we are going to look at closely this year and make sure that that doesn't occur.

Bryan Lewis: Simply: We will protect the goaltenders, don't worry.

Question: Bryan, I have wondered if you know or have at hand how many goals were killed by video replay last year?

Bryan Lewis: Last year we had 289 reviews for guys being in the crease. 152 were goals and 137 were no goals. So the answer to your question is 137 times we took away goals for people being in the crease.

Question: The overtime with 4-on-4. Any thought given to the fact that in overtime now some teams that would go for it in the first couple of minutes, try to get the quick goal if they didn't get it, they would probably just try to play out the five minutes. Now as teams go along at the end of regulation there is a possibility that, say, Anaheim who has two dynamic players last couple of minutes they may hold on and wait for that 4-on-4 situation. Any thought given to that or is that just not really relevant?

Colin Campbell: There has been a lot of guessing to how teams are going to play it. It is pretty interesting. We are not going to know until we actually see 4-on-4 in place.

I was actually looking at some stats this year that we released. It was where the teams ended up this season in their 4-on-4 results -- so many goals for; so many against. Anaheim, to my surprise, was on the negative side.

I think that a lot of people are suggesting they are not so happy with this; that teams are going to take a defensive stance the last ten minutes -- and I think now that with teams being able to secure a point in overtime, already have a point in the bank, I think you are going to see a lot of teams go for it. I do not think just the teams with the offensive players. There is going to be a lot of strategy. It's going to be interesting to see what kind of strategy is. Will some teams even try three forwards and one defenseman?

So I think we are in for some interesting things to happen in overtime and we will see who has the best strategy. Because there are points up for grabs there.

Bryan Lewis: I can tell you that our officials who had worked this system in the American Hockey League last were all extremely complimentary relative to the flow during the time -- they said it wasn't uncommon to have continuous action for three minutes in overtime.

Question: Along those lines, in the AHL, did you have numbers, Bryan, on 4-on-4 situations in overtime; how many games actually had a resolution to them?

Bryan Lewis: Sixty percent of American Hockey League games were decided in overtime. Actually, it is over 60 percent.

Question: Bryan, you made the comment earlier on the line changes and working in the International Hockey League they have a rule here where the linesmen blows the whistle and that is a 5-second warning for the puck to be dropped. Is this the same thing or kind of open-ended?

Bryan Lewis: We have looked at that. Personally I was there, we video-taped a game and the way you describe it is not quite accurate.

What it was we used to allow seven, eight, nine seconds for the visiting team to change; then the home team had an equal amount of time to change. What we are trying to do is have a greater point of emphasis for -- a number of components. When players come on the ice to get play started quicker; under routine and normal line changes to get the five-second stop the visiting team; then the home feel has an additional five seconds to counter. Home team always has the last change. We think it is appropriate to have a little bit of a timeframe.

In the IHL, the referee held his hand up until he felt that all the players were on, not until did he bring down his hand did the five seconds come into effect.

We looked at all of that stuff and we think we have rules in place with our officials now enforcing and using those current rules and everybody being made aware of it that the five seconds visiting team; five seconds; then get the players to drop the puck we think we will accomplish what we are after.

Question: I agree with everything you have said there, but once the two line changes have been made and the players who are supposed to be out on the ice are on the ice, that is when the linesmen would signal that the puck would be dropped in five seconds exactly from that point so there wasn't a lot of jockeying and you couldn't guess where the defensive players would line up so on, so forth?

Bryan Lewis: Yes, and quite frankly we don't want that. What we have done is emphasized to our officials (is) to get the players in quicker. We have to permit teams to make the appropriate change and from that point on is now: Get in there. There is not a whistle to start the play.

Colin Campbell: As Bryan said, we discussed this and we have discussed it with a couple of general managers and we have looked at tape of the International League and basically we are protective of the integrity of faceoffs and teams have worked at faceoffs for years. I won't want to see, if I were running a team, I am sure a lot of people wouldn't want to see a hurry-up faceoff in a 7th game of a Stanley Cup playoff or any playoff, any big game, for that fact.

What is the reason of hurry-up faceoffs? The reason is to hurry up the game. So we decided to hurry up the changes. There is a lot of jockeying going around, the changes, leaving people on the ice, so we in an exhibition series we hope to follow through the season, we are going to hurry up the changes. We are going to be more disciplined in calling delay of game if teams don't hurry up their changes. We are going to tend to that this week. We are going to try it in exhibition series. We are going to discuss it at our GMs meetings at the end of this month and hopefully apply it during the season.

Bryan Lewis: We know faceoffs are important. We know two centermen come on the ice; we could never sacrifice the quality of the faceoff. We want fast and fair faceoffs would be the best way I can describe it.

Question: Do you end up losing your point if the team scores into an empty net in overtime; is that how it works?

Colin Campbell: You pull your goalie when you are even -- you are 4-on-4. If it's a delayed penalty, no. But if a team scores into your net, if you pulled your goaltender, you lose a point that you had during regulation time.

Question: One more thing Bryan, that broken stick rule, I guess I was a little slow off the mark, could you explain that one again?

Bryan Lewis: On the broken stick, we had a situation where a player was down in the corner; had lost a stick. It was broken. Under old rules that if a player threw a stick onto the ice, it was a penalty for throwing his stick onto ice. Then it was also an additional penalty for the player who skated over to pick it up.

Question: Two penalties there then?

Bryan Lewis: There was. They felt it wasn't very fair. The player doesn't know; he may think he is going back to pick up his own stick that he didn't think was broken. And two penalties follow, it seemed very, very unfair. Only now -- still penalized for an illegal stick if he went to the penalty bench, he can still get a stick from a teammate and he can also now pick up the stick off the ice. If it is thrown on, obviously, as we said before, it is a penalty to the guy throwing.

Question: In a question of interference with the goaltender, does the referee still have the option of going upstairs?

Bryan Lewis: Not at all.

Question: In the playoffs, Dominik Hasek was out of his net all the time. One instance I think Brian Skrudland ran him over. There was a great howl and cry. Some goalies still take this to the extreme and refuse to stay in the net. Any thought to calling the goalies in before the season and say, 'Look, you can't wander 30 feet out of the net?'

Colin Campbell: Well, you can wander as far as you want except you can't go over center ice, I think, the rule is now. But we talked about that at our conference call when we had it in August regarding the crease, the protection of the goalkeeper rule. We are going to tend to that again in our GMs meeting in late September. How the goalies act out of the crease and how much they can do with the puck; how much they can interfere; how much they can pick, can they throw checks themselves; are they fair game and how much are they fair game? There is a question of how far this has gone, this protection of goalkeepers.

As you would probably guess, some GMs are one way on it; others the other way depending how their goaltender wanders.

Question: Bryan or Colin, you said that video replay was put in because you wanted to protect the goalies. But I sort of remember there was a lot of controversy of some calls that led to that as well. How is it going to be different this time?

Bryan Lewis: It would be significantly different. No need to go upstairs after any goal is scored except (it will) still be used for kicked in; high stick; batted into the glove; was it across the line -- it is the judgment of the official to determine as to the action of the attacking player only.

Question: I guess again the question is the officials used to have that judgment before we went to video replay. There were a lot of missed calls at that time. A lot of controversy which led to the video replay. How could we expect it to be different now?

Bryan Lewis: Our officials have a very strong feeling that they can make this call. We have done it in the past. To say that there were a lot of missed calls is very, very unfair. I think that we sat at the end of the day and we used to take pride in this, that when they show a replay afterwards we sit there and say, we got the right call made. We may be wrong times. It is going to be your judgements versus mine. I can say, am I ever glad they counted the goal. You may sit there and say, I think the goal should be taken away. The bottom line is, it is for the official or referees now who have been given the authority to be pass judgment on good legal goals and that is it.

Question: Colin, just a follow-up, when the previous rule came in there was -- one of its advantages was supposed to be, well, here is a case where there is no judgment. If there is a toe in the crease it is no goal. Does rescinding that mean that the NHL has abandoned the idea of having these straight black and white calls and that in fact, refereeing hockey game is always a matter of judgment?

Colin Campbell: I am under the belief, and so are a lot of people, that officials can call the game. They call it in every other game. We are going to have two referees now in 700 of our games and eventually all of our games. It is going to help this call greatly to see them from different angles.

The black and white part about being in the crease, there was a huge uproar, I don't know how many times, when a player would have his toe in the crease, had nothing to do with a good goal being scored and we have gone through a number of circumstances in situations this week with referees on how to call this; how to work it and a lot of the people involved with these -- with this situation were involved in the '70s and '80s and even '60s with how it used to work before. It wasn't as bad as some people have said it was then. I don't recall there ever being a problem like some people have said.

And simply, just throw all that out what I just said. Disregard it all. I think standing there or sitting there or watching on television, to sit there and wait for a referee to either point to center or say, no way after having a phone attached to his ear was not good for the game or good for the fans. The most natural thing to do is have a referee call them. He judges everything else. He judges trips; he judges interference; he judges penalty shots, so why can't he judge this?

That is what we are doing. I don't think we had that much of a problem before. As I said, it generated out of goaltenders being hit or being run and the rule is called protection of the goalkeeper; it is not called in the crease rule. It is called protection of the goalkeeper.

Question: Probably a wacky question, but I remember at the Leaf training camp the other day some guys were wondering about it. If this 4-on-4 looks very attractive and when we consider the players are getting bigger and the ice isn't, can any of you gentlemen foresee a day when maybe 4-on-4 is what you do in regulation time too?

Colin Campbell Your first statement was right.

Question: It is a wacky question in 1999, but maybe in 2005?

Colin Campbell: The reason why we come up with 4-on-4 on overtime was why we are playing overtime and it got down to a simple question: Should we abandon overtime or should we do something to bring more results? And the reason that we introduced overtime was to find that we can bring some sort of decisive result to the game that was tied in 60 minutes. So it wasn't happening -- it was to the point where teams were hanging on to 5 more minutes to get that point that they had got in 60 minutes. So we haven't discussed that at all and as I said there is no thought given to that.

Question: Somewhat a peripheral question regarding the addition of the extra referee for so many more games. We are in an age of expansion right now. For both of you, Colin, just hockey side of things, what does all this expansion mean in terms of the quality of play that fans are going to be seeing as opposed to just a few years ago? Bryan, how are you keeping quality referees, keeping up with expansion?

Colin Campbell: With 30 teams ... With the influx from Europe, with the number of Americans playing the game, I know having lived in New York now for quite a while and having been involved in hockey, the number of rinks that have gone up in that area alone I think there is so much involvement now in hockey and so many kids aspiring to play in the NHL that competition may be difficult now to make it to the NHL even though there are 30 teams. We have seen some great games last year. As long as they are competitive I think that is the key, as long as those games are competitive. Is the quality of play the same? How can you compare apples and oranges playing in the '60s and '70s but now I think the playoffs were great last year and some of those games in Dallas. The play was great in both the Colorado and Dallas series and the finals. I think during regular season it is the same way. There is a lot of supply of players out there.

Bryan Lewis: I point out a couple of things: One is we had established 16 last year. We also have additional eight people we have promoted from our American hockey staff. All of those people foresee what was coming. They have all have previous experience working under the two-referee system in the National Hockey League. The 24 officials that will do the bulk of our games have all worked NHL games before we got to this process. We have a minor league staff of 16 now that will fill in. We have to use them and will use them for 168 games. That is their training; their experience but I can tell you this: Before they get there, we will have worked; the AHL will have cooperated; we'll have been doing two referee games and some American League games so that for a player working on his development an official would have that opportunity in the AHL before he gets to the NHL. So we are well planned, well thought out. We have been working our way towards this for the last couple of years. It is really catching on.

Question: Bryan, how do you feel about the training and the recruitment of young officials because I notice we are going to a 50-game, two referee system this year and when you possibly hope to see if at all in the near future the hopes of using two officials in all 82 regular season games?

Bryan Lewis: The commissioner addressed our officials today. We are already planning an assignment process for next season. 168 games will be done by people who are currently in the American Hockey League; some already worked in the NHL as well; in addition to the 24 that we plan to use on a full-time basis. We have been going through this process. Our next stage is next season where the commissioner addressed the officials today. We have talked to the fact that we will go from 700 this year. We are planning for total, all games next year to be done in the two-referee system. Our planning for that is underway already.

Question: Overtime results. Since you put in the five-minute overtime do you guys have that handy?

Colin Campbell: What are you looking for specifically?

Question: How many games ended in ties and how many had a result a victory?

Bryan Lewis: 222 games went into overtime. There were 60 decisions, 27 percent.

Question: That is last season. Do you guys know overall?

Colin Campbell: We were at a high of 38 percent in 1983-84 when it was first introduced, and it went up to 41 percent and gradually dropped down to 27 percent. Actually it was 24 percent the year before last year but it gradually dropped down since it was introduced from 38 percent down to 27 percent.