Campbell ban could leave Hull short on numbers

The East Yorkshire club had little option but to jettison the Canadian forward following an off-ice incident during the 2-1 home defeat to Gardiner Conference rivals Dundee Stars on Saturday night.

It came after he had been ejected from the game deep into the third period for ‘excessive roughness’ after he retaliated to a hit into the boards by the visitors’ Nico Sacchetti who was, after the ensuing melee abated, awarded a boarding penalty and himself thrown out of the game.

It was once the two men left the ice that Campbell is thought to have further confronted Sacchetti near the Stars’ dressing room.

Hours after Hull revealed the 33-year-old was to be released with immediate effect, the Elite League’s head of discipline Moray Hanson announced that Campbell would be handed a 47-game ban for his actions at Hull Arena.

The lengthy ban was made up of various offences by Campbell – 15 matches for fighting off the ice, 12 matches for an attempted eye gouge, 10 matches for a knee to the head and a further 10 matches for excessive force to the head resulting in an impact to the ice.

“There are many aspects to this serious incident and that is why I have broken it down into separate sections.,” said Hanson.

“I have studied the game tape in great detail and I have spoken with the three officials

“This is a very nasty incident and there is no place for any of these actions in our sport.”

Hull are expected to seek talks with league officials to see whether they will be able to bring in a replacement for Campbell at some point in the future.

Rules currently state that is not allowed, meaning Hull – currently seven games without a win – would be forced to play an import down until just before the end of the regular season. But it’s believed the fact they sacked him prior to the completion of any disciplinary investigation will work in their favour.

Hull player-coach, Sylvain Cloutier, said: “We don’t condone what happened off the ice at all.

“Moray Hanson has done a good job of handling disciplinary matters this season and I think this will send out a clear message as to what will happen to players if they behave like this.

“I’m not taking away anything from what he did on Saturday night, but ‘Soupy’ was playing really well for us.

“If we’re not allowed to bring in a replacement it’s going to leave us short for the rest of the season – but that wouldn’t be anything new for this club. We will just have to fight through the adversity the same as we have on previous occasions.”

While no club would have been able to back one of their players following such an incident, Campbell’s exit - from his second spell at the club – leaves Cloutier with a big hole to fill, should he be allowed to do so.

While often a brooding, menacing presence on the ice Campbell has always been capable of producing highly-skilled passages of play and will always be fondly remembered by Hull fans for scoring a second leg hat-trick which defeated Sheffield Steelers two seasons ago to book an unexpected place at the play-off finals weekend for Cloutier’s team on the back of an aggregate 7-4 win.

This season Campbell - previously with Coventry Blaze and the Steelers - was again making himself a fans’ favourite, scoring 10 points, including four goals, in eight games.