from Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star,

The fight for the soul of hockey isn’t new; only the actors change. There was no appetite to curb fighting when NHLPA members suggested it in 1975 — “if violence ceases to exist, it will not be the same game,” said Clarence Campbell at the time — or when Harry Sinden suggested it in 1992. In 2009 general managers wanted to keep hits to the head, as long as they were delivered with a shoulder. Hockey has grown faster over the years, always faster, but parts of it have stayed slow.

When you dig through the trove of nearly 300 e-mails the National Hockey League had to disclose as part of a class-action concussion lawsuit, there are endless studies, memos, charts. There is the commissioner, who is now over two decades in.

And there are his hockey men, current and former: Colin Campbell, Mike Murphy, Brian Burke, Kris King, Brendan Shanahan. This correspondence is only a small part of their work, incomplete, but there is a history of hockey in there. Campbell, Murphy, King and Burke are of a kind, even though at times they have disagreed. They are the old school, and they tend to carry the day.

Campbell oscillates with passion, veering from place to place; in 2007, he refers to “greenpeace pukes” in a conversation with Burke; in 2008, he sends a memo to GMs saying “we cannot and will not tolerate blows to the head that are deliberate, avoidable, and illegal;” in 2013, he responds to an e-mail from Ottawa Senators trainer Ruben Echemendia, a member of the league’s concussion working group, that expresses concern about player education, officiating and a lack of post-concussion treatment resources by writing, “This guy is an absolute freaking idiot!”

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