The NHL fined the Chicago Blackhawks organization $2 million in October 2021 for its involvement in covering up the sexual assaults of two former players for more than a decade.
As of Wednesday, after winning the 2023 NHL Draft lottery and earning the chance to select Connor Bedard at No. 1 overall, the Blackhawks have made more than $5.2 million in ticket revenue and counting.
A pretty handsome reward less than two years after being found complicit in the sport’s biggest scandal ever, wouldn’t you say?
The Blackhawks winning the draft lottery was always a possibility. Chicago entered Monday with the third-best odds at 11.5 percent, trailing the Anaheim Ducks and Columbus Blue Jackets. Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson stripped the team down to the bone these last few years, trading away Chicago’s biggest stars and any player of note all for a chance at this moment right here.
The plan worked. And boy, it all kind of sucks, doesn’t it?
On a night that should have been a celebration of the sport’s bright future, hockey fans came away from the event furious at the results. Bedard — a generational hockey talent said to be on the level of Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid — is likely to soon call home an organization that covered up sexual assaults en route to three Stanley Cups across six years.
The most frustrating thing? It never should have gotten this far.
Had the NHL shown a shred of competence for once in its existence, the Blackhawks should have had to forfeit their right to draft in the first round for the foreseeable future. After all, the NHL has taken away first-rounders from teams for far less than covering up sexual assaults that were considered “an open secret” within the organization.
Arizona: holds predraft workouts, loses 1st rounder
New Jersey: signs Ilya Kovalchuk to a contract that was legal at the time, loses 1st rounder
Chicago: covers up sexual abuse for a decade, Connor Bedard
— John Cullen (@cullenthecomic) May 9, 2023
It’s completely unacceptable that the NHL’s only punishment against the Blackhawks for covering up sexual assault was a $2 million fine. A fine that the Blackhawks have since recouped — and then some — in ticket revenue just hours after winning the draft lottery. It was unacceptable then, and it’s even more outrageous now.
The NHL already failed Kyle Beach — John Doe 1 in the case — in the decade it took for his story to come to light. Not to mention Brad Aldrich’s other unnamed victims who were allowed to languish as the Blackhawks kept their sexual assault reports private. And now, every cent the Blackhawks make off of Bedard is yet another black stain on the NHL for failing to enact any semblance of a proper punishments on this organization.
Yes, the Blackhawks may have won the draft lottery, but all of hockey has lost once again as a result of the NHL’s incompetence.
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