Warning: The article contains mentions of sexual assault.
On May 13, 2021, a shockwave was sent through the professional sporting world, more specifically the hockey world. A former player on the Chicago Blackhawks filed a lawsuit under the name John Doe, alleging prolonged sexual assault at the hands of then-video coach Brad Aldrich during an off-ice incident during the Chicago Blackhawks’ 2010 Stanley Cup championship.
According to the investigation, on May 23, 2010, following learning of the assault, Blackhawks executives held a meeting about the claims and decided they would not address them until after the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The matter was not discussed again, and on June 14, 2010, five days after Chicago won the Stanley Cup, the Blackhawks human resources director gave Aldrich the option to resign or face termination if John Doe’s claims turned out to be true. Aldrich chose to resign and was permitted to participate in postseason celebrations and was allowed to have his name etched into the Stanley Cup.
The lawsuit document itself became public on the Internet and if you wanted to read the case for yourself, you could. In the lawsuit, John Doe testifies a deeply disturbing act done by Aldrich. At the time, John Doe was only 20 years old, serving as a Blackhawks backup prospect player and Aldrich was 27 at the time, working as the video coach, in his second year on the job. Following the release of the document, sports fans demonstrated massive support for John Doe and disdain at the Blackhawks organization and the NHL for appeasing Aldrich rather than listening to and keeping their players safe.
John Doe remained anonymous until October 2021 when in an interview with SportsCentre, he revealed his identity as Kyle Beach. In response to the decision to keep Aldrich involved in postseason activities following the assault, Beach claimed, “And then when they won, to see him paraded around lifting the Cup, at the parade, at the team pictures, at celebrations, it made me feel like nothing. It made me feel like I didn’t exist. It made me feel like I wasn’t important and… it made me feel like he was in the right and I was wrong.” Following the assault, Beach
also claimed that the other players on the Blackhawks were made aware of the assault and made offensive comments towards him. In the interview, it is further revealed that in the past, Aldrich assaulted a high school hockey player he coached prior to his acceptance in the NHL, of which he pleaded guilty and is a registered sex offender. In finding this fact, Beach gained the courage to stand up for himself and make sure that nobody else could be hurt by Aldrich. This revelation
brings the thought into question: If the NHL knew of Brad Alrich’s past assault, did they knowingly allow a sexual assaulter into professional coaching where he could further harm individuals? And if this is the case, which it must be, it makes all the more sense why the Blackhawks organization and the NHL didn’t want to fire Alrdich following Beach’s assault, and makes it all the more harrowing that the NHL knowingly allowed Beach and other players to be put at risk. According to ESPN, an independent investigation by the law firm Jenner & Block concluded that “nothing was done” by senior leaders to prevent the harassment Beach faced. After the investigation, the NHL fined the Blackhawks two million dollars for what it called an “insufficient and untimely response” to Beach’s accusations. Some fans and journalists have pointed out that the penalty was one million less than the league initially fined the New Jersey Devils in 2010 for skirting around the salary cap. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman argued that the fine against Chicago was “substantial.”
Is two million dollarsenough “punishment” for allowing a convicted and resigtered sexual assaulter to coach for your team? Is two million enough to cover the lifetime of damage inflicted on Beach? It isn’t, because according to Forbes, the Blackhawks are the fourth most valuable NHL franchise with a value of $925 million; two million doesn’t even make a dent. And Gary Bettman had the audacity to claim that the fine is “substantial.” The Blackhawks franchise should have been demolished for such an act.
The league also announced that all executives, staff and players would have to complete mandatory training sessions to learn more about abuse by the end of the year. Training won’t help if the NHL team organizations continue to hire registered sex offenders who already had two sexual assault allegations under his belt.
There have been little public cases of sexual assault in male professional sporting throughout the years. Mainly due to pressure, stigma of male sexual assault victims, and the fear of public backlash, and even if it is known within the team it is kept under tight wraps until, with the case of Kyle Beach, it is released to the public 11 years later. However, the Kyle Beach case stands as
one of bravery, strength, and the corruption and enabling of abuse within the National Hockey League and professional sporting.
