Campbell’s devotion to NHL leads to Hockey Hall of Fame induction

Campbell has been a driving force and leading voice in every decision and innovation the NHL has made since he became a League executive in 1998 following an 11-year playing career as an undersized defenseman (5-foot-9) and 13-year NHL coaching career, including three-plus seasons as New York Rangers coach (1994-98).

It is in part because of Campbell’s hockey mind and his ability to be a guide, sounding board, occasional punching bag, ultimate ruler of the NHL’s general managers, and to run a hockey operations department that is at the forefront of everything that happens on the ice that has paved the way for the skill to dazzle and entertain us every night the way it does now.

His ideas are evident in how the game is played, officiated, reviewed, replayed and even televised for more than a quarter century.

“You think about 2005, when we come out of the work stoppage and the game needed a reset with a bunch of rule changes; he was very influential in that,” said Ken Holland, the former Detroit Red Wings and Edmonton Oilers general manager who was inducted into the Hall of Fame’s Builder category in 2020. “He has led the general managers over two decades, almost three, and the game is in a great place. He’s a massive part of it. He’s given his life to the game.”

Campbell saw one NHL game in person as a child, the Chicago Blackhawks at the Detroit Red Wings at the old Detroit Olympia. He didn’t play at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto until he was playing at the junior level with the Peterborough Petes in the early 1970s against the Toronto Marlies.

“I never could come to Toronto,” Campbell said.

He did once as a baseball player in the summer. That’s when he first saw the Hockey Hall of Fame at Exhibition Place, its home before moving into its current building at the corner of Yonge and Front Streets.

“Over there on the water was the first Hall of Fame,” Campbell said, pointing out the window of his office at the NHL’s Toronto headquarters on Bay Street next to Scotiabank Arena. “I remember going in there when I was at a baseball tournament in August. It was the CNE Exhibition. It was a big fair and they had a small building, and it was the Hall of Fame. I remember going in there and seeing it. My dream was to get in as a player.”

Campbell’s playing career wouldn’t allow that. He scored 25 goals in 636 NHL games with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Colorado Rockies, Edmonton Oilers, Vancouver Canucks and Red Wings from 1974-85.

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