Failing to hold Kevin Cheveldayoff accountable is a travesty.
The NHL continues to flub the handling of its sexual abuse scandal in new and astonishing ways.
It’s tragic that I have to point out, up there in the first paragraph, that this isn’t some sort of anomaly; powerful people in sports have made a habit of covering up this sort of abuse. This isn’t some outlier. It’s just the NHL’s turn.
Yet the supposed leaders in various leagues and conferences repeatedly show they have learned nothing, at all, about how to handle the fallout — which guarantees they are not ready to make necessary changes to prevent these things in the future.
If you aren’t yet well-versed in the story of former Blackhawks player Kyle Beach — who was sexually assaulted by a staff member in 2010, reported it and was ignored — read Mary Clarke’s timeline of the situation.
While two of the leaders from that Blackhawks era have been forced to resign (Stan Bowman as GM in Chicago, Joel Quenneville as the head coach in Florida, where he’d been since 2019), the NHL announced Friday that it would not discipline Kevin Cheveldayoff, now the general manager in Winnipeg.
That makes no sense. You can, and most certainly should, hold someone responsible for not informing proper authorities about allegations of sexual assault. Which is what happened with Cheveldayoff. Per USA TODAY:
According to the findings released from a team-commissioned independent investigation by Jenner & Block on Tuesday, Cheveldayoff, then Chicago’s assistant GM, was part of a meeting with team leaders who did not act when a player, “John Doe,” alleged former video coach Brad Aldrich sexually assaulted him in 2010. The May 23 meeting also included former GM Stan Bowman, ex-coach Joel Quenneville and team president John McDonough, who would not report the alleged incident to human resources until June 14, days after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. Human resources allowed Aldrich to resign June 16 instead of face an investigation.
What an awful message NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is sending. This only reinforces the idea that matters like this should be left to “senior” managers, when we have seen, time after time, that those are precisely the people most likely to cover it up.
And, also, the NHL should simply … expect all of its people in positions of power to do the right thing. This is not that hard.
Of course, Cheveldayoff tripped all over himself in a statement:
The words “I’m sorry” do not appear here. The words, “I was wrong” do not appear here. The words “I made a mistake and will regret it forever” do not appear here.
What’s here, though, is an attempt to deflect from his own role in causing Kyle Beach’s pain by calling Beach “incredibly brave.”
That reaction is more than a decade too late, Kev. Why weren’t you courageous enough to believe him then, and have you done anything, at all, to change the way you see things now?
Nobody has handled this well. My colleague Charles Curtis pointed out how ludicrous Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews sounded when he expressed sorrow for Bowman rather than focusing on Beach and a broader hockey culture that failed him. And Andy Nesbitt showed how mumbly and spineless Gary Bettman has been.
Quenneville at least said he wants to learn and improve, but only after distancing himself from Beach by referring to him as “this young man.”
Beach is 31 now. In 2010 he was a rising prospect. He’d been the 11th overall pick in the 2008 draft and had just scored 86 points playing a rugged style (186 penalty minutes) in his final season of junior hockey. Quenneville may not have known him well, but Beach most certainly was not just some “young man.”
Much of the blame for how the Blackhawks failed here has amorphously been assigned to “hockey culture.” It’s important for those within the sport, though, to explore what actually happened. Blanket condemnations may ring true, but they provide little path toward reconciliation.
There were specific problems here that need to be explored. Toews had been named captain, a position with real power in the NHL, before he could legally drink alcohol. Perhaps it’s not the best idea to have someone so young serve as the representative of the players to the coaching staff.
A more mature player might have set a different tone in the locker room, too:
Is this the reason people in Chicago didn’t take Beach seriously? Did they fail to believe a 6-foot-3, 200-pound power forward could be sexually assaulted by a video coach? Was there no understanding of power dynamics? Or just a callous disregard for any issue that didn’t directly effect the chase for a Stanley Cup?
Bruins winger Taylor Hall was one of several players who delivered a better message in the wake of this story shaking the NHL:
That gives you hope, right? That a player can see it this way. But how do we not also despair, knowing that one of the old boys just skated away, clear and free? He’s still there making decisions that impact the lives of every person in an entire organization, and when it comes time for him to fess up, to say he’s sorry, to admit to what he did wrong and say how he’s going to change, he instead just offers up “empathy” to the man whose life he helped ruin.
How are we supposed to deal with that?
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