A black mark for Hockey

I read the report on the Chicago Blackhawks incident and I can not believe it took this long to come out in the open. It was pretty sickening.

Kudos to Kyle Beach for having the courage to publicly admit it was he who was sexually assaulted by the Chicago Blackhawks video coach Brad Aldrich back in 2010.

And shame on the Chicago Blackhawks for ignoring the situation then, as they were pursuing the Stanley Cup, which they eventually won.

Stan Bowman resigned Wednesday after the report was made public, and Al MacIsaac, a top executive with the Blackhawks was also dropped from the team.

Joel Quenneville, who was the head coach of Chicago at the time and was the head coach of the Florida Panthers, resigned on Thursday night after his meeting with Commissioner Gary Bettman. Kevin Cheveldayoff, the Blackhawks GM at the time, will not face any discipline from the NHL as Bettman determined that Cheveldayoff was not a member of the senior leadership team of the Blackhawks in 2010 and was not responsible for any of the decision-making of the Blackhawks.

As far as former team President John McDonagh is concerned, again, shame on you.

Not that the Players Association has anything to be proud about as they also failed Beach. They are supposed to protect him and they did nothing.

I’m not a big fan of Patrick Kane but I find it hard to believe that he didn’t know anything about the incident, especially with Kyle Beach saying he thought everyone on the team knew at the time. For Kane to say that he didn’t know John Doe’s identity until Beach came forward makes me skeptical that Kane is being fully truthful.

Hopefully the hockey world will embrace how courageous Beach was and is and I hope the hockey world is able to make amends and welcome Beach back.

And as far as the Blackhawks are concerned, I hope you make it good with Beach and not drag him through the courts.

Let’s get back to the ice.

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