NHL Commissioner Defends Discipline, Condemns Blackhawks' Actions

CHICAGO — After former Blackhawks prospect Kyle Beach came forward last week as the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Chicago Blackhawks, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said Monday that what reportedly happened to the former first-round draft pick at the hands of a former team video coach is “wrong on every level.”

Bettman, who met via video conference with Beach over the weekend, also confirmed what independent investigators said last week in a 107-page report, saying that the Blackhawks mishandled the allegations brought by Beach in 2010. But the commissioner is defending how the league handled the matter and said that the team gave league officials "a heads up" that legal action may be coming, but that the Hawks said it had no merit.

Since the release of the report by Chicago law firm Jenner & Block last week, Hawks general manager Stan Bowman and former coach Joel Quenneville have resigned. Any other member of the Hawks front office who was still in place was let go by the team as it continues to deal with the fallout from the 11-year-old scandal.

The Blackhawks have been fined $2 million by the NHL for the manner in which the incident was dealt with, which is a penalty Bettman on Monday called “substantial by any measure.”

Quenneville, who had led the Florida Panthers to a 7-0 start to the season before stepping down on Thursday night, was permitted to keep coaching for two days after the report was released. The third-year Panthers coach who was fired by the Hawks in 2018, told reporters on Wednesday that he stuck by his claim of not hearing about the reported abuse by former Hawks video coach Brad Aldrich until earlier this summer.

Investigators, meanwhile, is determined that Quenneville, along with Bowman, former Hawks team president John McDonough, and others were in a room together and decided to table the allegations until after the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs had concluded.

Also in that meeting was then assistant general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, who is now the general manager of the Winnipeg Jets. The league said last week it would not take further disciplinary action against the former Hawks executive.

Asked Monday why Quenneville was allowed to keep coaching before he resigned, Bettman replied, “(Quenneville) had already coached 867 games since 2010 and I wanted to make sure that no one, including Coach Quenneville, could say I had prejudged him. People can disagree on this, but I was focused on the long term and not that one game.”

Bill Daly, the NHL’s deputy commissioner, said the league was warned of a possible lawsuit by the Blackhawks’ general counsel last December. However, Daly said that the league did not do anything about the possible legal action because attorneys for the Blackhawks told the league the case was without merit. The Blackhawks said that they believed the case was without merit in the team’s response to the lawsuit brought by “John Doe”, who was revealed to be Beach last week.

Bettman said he apologized to Beach for everything he has been through since the reported sexual assault and offered him and his family a number of options for counseling moving forward. Bettman said the league’s goal was to continue to do whatever is necessary to continue to move forward.

League officials also said that they did not learn that Aldrich had been arrested for criminal sexual conduct against a Michigan high school hockey player in 2013 until this year. The victim of that assault, of which Aldrich was convicted in 2014, is also suing the Blackhawks. League officials declined to say whether they would offer counseling for that victim.

In defending the league’s course of action against the Blackhawks, Bettman said it did not know the contents of the Jenner & Block report until last Monday. Bettman said that the Hawks’ senior management, including owner and Chairman Rocky Wirtz and CEO Danny Wirtz, were not aware of the allegations before Beach’s lawsuit was filed.

“I think this situation, and the view of this that we expressed to the clubs on an ongoing basis, is that the people that work for you do their jobs,” Bettman said. “You're responsible for what goes on. You need to know about what goes on in your organization and take appropriate action when inappropriate things are taking place.

"If nothing else, this has to serve as a wake-up call for all clubs: You to make sure you understand what's going on in your organization, because you're going to be held responsible."

On Monday, they announced they are postponing a ceremony to honor former Hawks star Marian Hossa. In announcing the postponement of the ceremony, which was scheduled to take place on Tuesday, Nov. 9, the Hawks said that it was time for the organization to reflect rather than celebrate, the team said Monday night.

"Marian and the club’s leadership team all know we must build back our community’s trust as we ensure accountability within our organization following Kyle Beach’s courage in coming forward," the Blackhawks statement said. "Our new leadership team is committed to upholding our values and always working to better this organization and our game as we move forward."

Bettman said he can understand the disappointment being felt by Blackhawks fans, who have expressed anger over how the team mishandled the situation involving Beach in the years since the reported assault. The Blackhawks, have their part, have sent a message to its fan base saying that the organization is committed to doing the right thing and that it has installed new policies since 2010 that would keep this from happening again.

Like the Blackhawks, Bettman said it is trying to learn from the situation and move on.

“People are going to, like us, feel very dispirited, disappointed, horrified, as to what happened,” Bettman told reporters on Monday. “But understand that we have tried to be as transparent as possible. That action has been taken , disciplinary, to address the things that went wrong. That we have had, even prior to this, procedures and training and counseling in effect to ensure the culture of hockey doesn’t encourage and, in fact, prohibits this type of activity.

“We’re going to have to be judged as we move forward, but if you take into account all of the factors here, while it’s certainly a horrible picture, we have to move forward the best we can, doing the things that are right in terms of addressing either what has happened or how we move forward.”