Cleanse The Sport: These Men Need To Be Fired

@Rwesthead Pointed out to Gary Bettman that while Blackhawks fined $2M for abuse coverup, Arizona Coyotes lost draft picks over improperly working out a prospect and that NJ Devils were fined $3M for a salary cap violation. Bettman: “Different context, different facts.” Even now he thinks this is a fair statement.

There’s an old Turkish idiom that says “The fish rots from the head”. It’s now a catch phrase to describe how an organization or state fails. Leadership, the head of the fish, is the source of the rot.

If that axiom is true then either NHL commissioner Gary Bettman or NHLPA executive director Don Fehr— or both— need to be shown the door. Nothing better exposes the organizational failure of these two executives than their treatment of the Kyle Beach sexual assault case that spilled out this week. 

It took a sexual assault victim exposing his identity on nationwide TV eleven years after the event to shame them into finally admitting their complicity in his pain. Yeah, that bad. If you need background on the case, here’s what we wrote in June and July . In short, the Chicago Blackhawks, NHL and NHLPA saw Beach’s claim that a Chicago team official has sexually assaulted him as a distraction during the 2010 Stanley Cup run. So they buried it.

Inconveniently, people in their organization had urged them to do the right thing. “Blackhawks coach, Paul Vincent, told news outlets he told team executives, including team President John McDonough and general manager Stan Bowman, to report the allegations to Chicago police, but his request was rejected. Vincent reportedly says he will be happy to testify in court on behalf of the complainant… 

(The alleged assailant Brad) Aldrich left the organization with a letter of recommendation and was later convicted in 2013 in Michigan of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a student. He is now on that state’s registry of sex offenders.”

What did the NHL and NHLPA do since 2010? When they saw that their omertá had worked in sidelining Beach’s complaints they moved on. While Beach suffered silently as his career crumbled. And while his assailant went on to attack again in Michigan. Worse, in December of 2020, the Blackhawks rewarded Bowman, making him president of hockey operations after they had earlier fired McDonough in April 2020. 

Blackhawks team spokesman Adam Rogowin blithely said the team was confident it would “be absolved of any wrongdoing.” Picking up on the theme, a number of 2010 Blackhawks played the Sergeant Schultz “I know nothing” card about the story. A few of their teammates did break ranks. But not the team leaders. They let sleeping dogs lie while the collected their Stanley Cup rings.

As we noted in June: “What is most remarkable about the story is that it has been a poorly kept secret throughout the NHL since the time. Players and managers reportedly knew about it. Presumably the NHL’s investigative arm, hyped in the wake of the (Graham) James episode, would have been made aware. If they were not, why not if everyone in the league knew of it?”

That’s where the case sat until two diligent reporters, Katie Strang of The Athletic and Rick Westhead of TSN, re-opened the file this year. Beach revealed he was the John Doe victim in a tearful TSN interview. It went off like a bomb. The week ended with both the league and union admitting guilt for their neglect while begging Beach’s forgiveness. 

Tellingly they had no excuse for what happened. The “absolved of any wrongdoing” was now "sincere regret”, what can we do to make up for this? As if.

Don Fehr said in a press release “There is no doubt that the system failed to support him in his time of need, and we are part of that system… the grave nature of this incident should have resulted in further action on our part. The fact that it did not was a serious failure. I am truly sorry, and I am committed to making changes to ensure it does not happen again.”

Will Fehr even get to make those chances? The NHLPA has a conference where his future will be on the table after the terrible failure of the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program. It’s hard to see him make an argument that he deserves a chance when the team reps ask him what he did to protect one of their brethren. 

For Bettman, the commissioner who overstayed his welcome will likely be safe unless a group of the owners grow a conscience and fire him. But in most corporations his personal effects would be in a cardboard box and he would be escorted from the premises for allowing this stain on his business. Or else he’d take the initiative and resign in shame for failing his employees.

Sadly, the hockey media culture remains the same one we encountered in the 1990s when, along with Carl Brewer, Sue Foster and Russ Conway, we exposed the corruption between the league and NHL Players Association director Alan Eagleson on a range of subjects from player pensions to collective bargaining to Canada Cup fraud. 

That story had largely lain dormant for a generation despite the repeated calls by Brewer for investigations into the cozy relationship between the league and Eagleson. Media with NHL sponsorships or broadcast deals would rather have eaten glass than reported what they saw.

Thanks to the digging of Conway, Foster and CBC Toronto the truth emerged in the mid 1990s. Eagleson was convicted of fraud and NHL president John Ziegler was replaced by Bettman. A familiar pattern then ensued. When the facts became too hard to deny the negligent media put on the hair shirt, condemning corruption and vowing to never allow its negligence to happen again. 

Now ask Kyle Beach how well they did on their promise. 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand has been nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan is called InExact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx