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Breaking Up the Beatles: When Soup Turns Cold |
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I will always remember the Ice Bowl. It was the single greatest hockey event I have ever attended. To be there it was magical.
And that is what I think of when I think of Brian Campbell.
Sidney had just given his press conference. The Superstar. The Establishment.
Then we waited.
"Brian Campbell and Ryan Miller will be out shortly," Mike Gilbert, Sabres Media Relations guy announced. And we waited. Cold and on deadlines, many of the media started to get restless.
Finally in their retro-fitting, English suits, out strolled the remaining Beatles: Ryan Miller with his camera around his neck and Brian Campbell eating a slice of pizza. The two are quick and quirky. Miller sits at the podium, facing the press, takes off his camera's lens cap and takes a photo of the press. We laugh.
Ryan, who is the Ringo Starr of the Sabres jokes about the snow banks and how there were several shots he never saw, but makes the most intriguing and most honest statement of the day. A line that in many hockey markets would have gotten him strung up.
"I would look at the crowds during the stoppages. Usually I never leave the game focus, but I wanted to enjoy this, and I feel like I have been around long enough that I can do spend one game enjoying myself."
Campbell is far more quiet and sitting at the podium. He is George Harrison. Taking it all in, eating his pizza, uncaring of what someone might say about him, while Ryan yucks it up.
The photo I took that is at top of this story says a lot.
With John in NY, and Paul in Philly, George and Ringo are left behind but really don't seem to care.
Now George is in San Jose. But how did he get there.
Of all the baffling things that happened, from Foppa to Mats, Campbell NOT re-signing in Buffalo was perhaps the strangest.
We all know the history in Buffalo.
The reason that John and Paul are gone is often tied to the fact that Darcy refused to negotiate with them until after the tour.
It was a mistake that internally some will "sort of" admit, but as the guitarist's joke goes, "sort of" is a phrase that doesn't mean anything unless it is placed after certain sentences.
I love you....sort of.
You are dying...sort of...
or
I will sign you to a long term deal...sort of
This fall with the signings of Roy and Hecht, it looked like the Sabres policy had been revised. And since Roy and Campbell share an agent, we all figured that there was no way that Ringo would leave the band.
And for a while it looked that way.
Then shortly before the Ice Bowl, Campbell made a statement saying that the "price is higher in December than it was in January." Words that didn't sound like Brian's words to me. A definite departure from the kid that loves Buffalo and had told many that he would take a home-town discount to keep making music by the Falls.
I started to hear from the Sabres camp a growing frustration, but a still a solid confidence that it would get done. "When both parties want the same thing a deal is there to make."
The two sides talked about possible deals, until suddenly Campbell walked away from the table, without so much as a counter from the biggest Sabres deal yet...A Six year deal at just under 30 million. At the time the Sabres were struggling horribly and some were telling me it wasn't about putting the Sabres in their place, it was more about Brian wanting to get the focus off of him.
The Sabres were growing more and more frustrated. Here is a player that they had groomed. A guitarist that they pulled out of a cover band and was patient with as he learned. There were games early on where Campbell made BIG mistakes, but the Sabres believed in his abilities and stuck it out.
Now, the Sabres couldn't help but feel like loyalty was dead.
Meanwhile, teams wanted Brian. Chicago and San Jose started the calls, but nothing was serious, because everyone kept hearing that Brian would give a discount to stick around. And this was a puck moving defenseman. The most precious of player there is.
And there was the rub. No matter what Campbell wanted he was being viewed by the NHLPA not as Brian Campbell the player, but more as Brian Campbell, The Comparative.
It was obvious that someone would give Brian 7 million this summer, and that became far too important in the negotiations. The Sabres, never one to become a team that was top heavy, but rather a team built on a team system wasn't willing to pay that kind of money.
Then suddenly out of the silence negotiations began again. This time it was Ringo Miller who changed the landscape. Slowly the Sabres were becoming a dangerous team again, and Miller, who is the permanent captain of this team with rotating C's, was leading the charge. I kept hearing that following the All-Star game Miller just decided that the Sabres were going to be good again. And they were.
And Campbell's inner feelings that he wanted to keep the band together came out.
But the Sabres were still unwilling to throw 6 per at a player that they felt was a star, but not a superstar. Finally in a sense of desperation the Sabres gave him his 6 per, but only for three years. In the ridiculous age we live in of 15 year deals, no agent will allow his 28-year-old, puck moving dman to sign a three year deal at any price.
TSN reported he turned the deal down during the game. Before Brian even had a chance to say anything about it. Brian was in tears after the game, not knowing where to turn. Torn by his pull to stay a Sabre and his "responsibility" as the #1 commodity this summer.
The next day the Sabres told me that the only response they had gotten about the three year deal was what they heard Darren Dreger say. It was the middle of the next day. I talked to people who told me that, "They are going to turn it down." But I am very curious what the delay was and if Campbell was trying to get everyone to be OK with that deal.
Then Boyle signed a mega deal and became the comparable. Boyle, who hadn't played all season and in my opinion isn't nearly as good as Campbell. And yet the Lightning essentially will tell you that the reason they aren't running away with the southeast is because Boyle was hurt. Without a transition game in today's game you are essentially screwed. Absence makes the heart grow fonder I suppose.
Once that deal was announced the writing was on the wall for Campbell and it is no coincidence that his agent, Larry Kelly, came out immediately and said that "This will be Campbell's last game as a Sabre." This statement infuriated the Sabres. Hell it infuriated me. Whoever's side you want to choose, you NEVER say such a thing prior to an NHL game.
The next day many teams made pitches beyond San Jose. In an attempt to reunite George and Paul, the Philadelphia Flyers made what may have been the best offer, but there was no way Darcy was trading him in the Conference.
Darcy made a great deal considering what he was left with after the world was told that George was playing his final concert. Basically any team talking about Campbell knew that he was a rental after that statement.
Bernier has EVERY potential to follow in the footsteps of other great French Canadian Players that have dawned the Purple and Gold. And a #1 in this draft is a GOLDEN CHIP.
And although it is hard to imagine now, George may still return to the band yet....With the love these guys have for this city, a reunion tour is always possible
Celebrating the little one's birthday today. He told me he is turning the big "3" today. Funny little Ek.
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