Where Was Media On The Latest Hockey Sexual Abuse Scandal?
Stop us if you’re heard this one before. A sexual predator preys upon young male hockey players. Hockey officials are warned. The story is buried in the press. The offender goes on to repeat his behaviour. The victims are abandoned and scorned.
Anyone paying attention would recognize the pattern. Graham James seared his name into infamy as he took advantage of Sheldon Kennedy, Theo Fleury and others when he ran hockey teams in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. David Frost lured young men into sexual perversion as a hockey coach/mentor in Ontario. Thomas “Chico” Adrahtas allegedly sexually assaulted hockey players in Illinois.
The list goes on. Now we can add another name, Brad Aldrich, to the wall of hockey shame. A former Chicago Blackhawk player (known only as John Doe) is suing the team alleging that the then-assistant Chicago coach sexually assaulted him in 2010 during a playoff run to a Stanley Cup title, and that the team did nothing after he informed a now-retired team employee.
According to the lawsuit the unidentified player reported the alleged abuse to a mental-skills coach on the team. That coach (who denies the claim) allegedly convinced the player it was his fault. The lawsuit, filed on May 7 in Cook County Circuit Court, says Aldrich also assaulted another unidentified Blackhawks player at the period the Hawks were one of the top teams in the NHL, winning three Stanley Cups.
But another 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.
Vincent told TSN. “I will stand up in court and say what happened. I know what the team did to cover this up, and coming forward was the right thing to do.”
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. Meanwhile, in December of 2020 the Blackhawks promoted Bowman to president of hockey operations after they fired McDonough in April 2020.
“What bothers me is they fired (Aldrich), but they didn’t take it to the cops. …” says a an anonymous former Chicago player. “They let him get a job with a U-18 team. They let him go work with minors. They let this happen."
Blackhawks team spokesman Adam Rogowin said the team was confident it would “be absolved of any wrongdoing.”
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 James episode, would have been made aware. If they were not, why not if everyone in the league knew of it?
In a tweet, former Blackhawk Brent Sopel was frank. “·Jun 25 The front office staff should be in jail. The NHL is showing there (sic) true colours. Gary (Bettman) doesn’t care about anyone but himself. This is absolutely disgusting that the NHL is doing nothing.”
Most damning is where were the dozens of hockey “insiders” in the media during this time? The people we are told have their ear to the ground on all things happening in the league? Why did it take till 2021 for Rick Westhead (TSN) and Katie Strang (The Athletic) to unearth the poorly hidden story during the NHL’s postseason semifinals?
Isn’t this the same media that swore it would never ignore this sort of story— no matters how much it hurt friends and sponsors— when the James and Frost stories emerged? Aren’t these the same networks that went wall-to-wall on the earlier stories when they surfaced, trying to make up for their negligence about sexual abuse in hockey during the past?
Sadly, the hockey media culture is 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 Gary 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.
Later, they grew even tighter with the people they covered, inking enormous broadcast deals or sponsorship contracts that have drawn them ever closer to hockey power centres.
The NHL has gone into omertà mode on the Aldrich story when asked how it countenanced the alleged behaviour of Chicago team management in ignoring Aldrich and then giving him a letter of recommendation. Bowman, the son of NHL Hall of Fame member Scotty Bowman, is not answering questions yet. But as general manager of the U.S. Olympic men’s hockey program for 2022 he will have to offer some explanations if he’s to keep the post.
(Montreal Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin, who was a Chicago player at the time, says, "I was not part of any meeting & I was not part of any decision & I was not aware of what was going on at the time. You can go on the record with that.” Done.)
One would like to take the league and their snoozing media at their word that they will do better in covering these abuse stories in the past. Sadly, there is little reason to believe this contrition after so many false starts in the past.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book Personal Account with Tony Comper is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx