Blackhawks, NHL mishandled sexual assault allegations in 2020 and 2021, not just 2010Ben Popeon November 1, 2021 at 10:43 pm

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Monday that the league, and the Blackhawks, knew about the “threatened litigation” from Kyle Beach in December 2020. | Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Hawks and NHL executives knew about Kyle Beach’s allegations in December 2020, four months before his lawsuit was filed and brought the allegations to light, yet did nothing even in that time.

More than four months before Kyle Beach’s lawsuit — alleging the Blackhawks covered up his sexual assault — was filed in court, current leadership of the Hawks and the NHL knew about his allegations.

Team lawyers contacted the league in late December 2020 to provide a “heads-up” about the “threatened litigation,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Monday in a press conference alongside commissioner Gary Bettman.

Yet the league took no action at that time (or any other time) before Beach’s lawsuit, filed May 7, brought former Hawks video coach Brad Aldrich’s alleged actions and Hawks management’s gross mishandling of the situation to light.

Daly said that’s because the Hawks told them: “‘There’s potential civil litigation, we’ve looked into the matter and there’s no merit to it.'”

“I’m not sure there’s anything we could’ve done differently or faster based on the knowledge that we had,” Bettman added. “In retrospect, based on the knowledge that everybody has [now], I wish we knew about this in 2011. But we didn’t. What we may have thought the club was telling us — or the club thought the situation was — before the lawsuit was actually filed, and what ultimately it turned out to be from the report, that wasn’t [the same].”

The NHL’s inexplicable choice to take the Hawks’ word for it and never seek any details themselves, however, exemplifies the stark lack of responsibility taken throughout this entire process.

(The NHL evidently didn’t even confirm the Hawks had looked into it, as they claimed, because the Hawks actually hadn’t: Included in Aldrich’s resignation was a Hawks promise that the matter would not be investigated, the Jenner & Block investigation found.)

Certainly, no accountability was shown in 2010, when the Hawks let Aldrich remain around the organization for three weeks beyond the John McDonough-led meeting discussing his alleged assault.

But the accountability demonstrated in 2021 hasn’t been nearly strong enough, either — no matter how much the involved parties tout how hockey culture’s progress over the past decade.

Before Hawks chairman Rocky Wirtz and CEO Danny Wirtz admirably wiped the organization clean last week, the Hawks’ clear top priorities all summer were deflection and self-preservation, not honesty and justice.

Their May 13 statement, shortly after the lawsuit was filed, could not possibly look worse in hindsight. Its key sentence — “Based on our investigation, we believe the allegations against the organization lack merit and we are confident the team will be absolved of any wrongdoing” — purported blatant lies in every phrase.

The two-month delay between the lawsuit’s filing and the investigation’s beginning looks lazy at best, and suspicious at worst. Only once the public firestorm of anger proved its staying power did the Hawks pull the trigger to commission the investigation, and only after more criticism did they commit to making the results public.

Both comments ex-general manager Stan Bowman squeezed into his July 22 press conference — that he did “not condone or tolerate harassment or assault of any type” and that he was “eager to speak about this [situation] in more detail in the future” — aged poorly, too.

And while nothing has indicated the Wirtz family was aware in 2010 of the coverup, their decision to let Bowman and fellow executive Al MacIsaac continue to not only operate in their roles this offseason and preseason but also make franchise-altering hockey transactions — while the investigation was actively occurring — now appears egregiously reckless.

Beach himself, in his TSN interview last week, described the need for a system where “somebody…who has no skin in the game” deals with future sexual assault allegations.

It’s a great point. His alleged assault was originally covered up by Hawks executives with skin in the Stanley Cup pursuit. And his lawsuit and its allegations this summer were wrongly downplayed by Hawks and NHL executives with skin in the reputation game.

That must change moving forward.

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