For a team who didn’t qualify for the playoffs, the Chicago Blackhawks have been dominating headlines over the last few days. Unfortunately, the cause of such a media maelstrom has very little to do with the sport of hockey. In fact it reads more like an episode of Law and Order than anything to do with athletics. An alleged sexual assault, a purported cover up effort, and a media blackout from the league in the wake of allegations levied against one of it’s most valuable franchises.
While journalists around North America are busy tapping sources, and unearthing new crumbs of information daily, the NHL has battened down the hatches and refused to acknowledge the matter publicly. Sadly the world of amateur and professional hockey is no stranger to off ice misconduct. Stories of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse suffered at the hands of coaches or team management are not difficult to uncover.
For every Sheldon Kennedy or Theoren Fleury who have come forward with their stories, there are untold others who have lived with their abuse in silence, unsure of where to turn or if anyone would even care. Because although the calendar may say it’s 2021, when it comes to males being the victims of sexual abuse/exploitation in the testosterone fueled world of sports, the mindset of many in positions of power remains stuck in a bygone era.
Be a man. Suck it up. Men don’t talk about their feelings. I went through worse when I was your age and other such prehistoric ways of thinking remain prevalent in the boardrooms of professional sports. Which is why it’s so frustrating for hockey fans that even in an era where everyone has pretty well accepted the fact that leagues like the NFL, MLB, or NHL will inevitably read the room wrong when it comes to disciplinary matters, social justice issues, or even the basic enforcement of its own rules (look no further than the MLB’s foreign substance debacle they find themselves mired in for a prime example of this), the NHL seems to be setting the bar for futility when it comes to off ice issues.
Where has Gary Bettman been during all of this? Is this not the type of thing that would logically be one of the top 3 duties in his job description as Commissioner? Even Roger Goodell, who isn’t exactly a media/PR savant himself, would have the common sense to get out ahead of this and release some sort of statement on behalf of the league. Instead, we get crickets from NHL headquarters. Perhaps he’s too busy preparing his annual awkward remarks to the crowd before handing out the Stanley Cup to be bothered with something as trivial as a sexual assault allegation that’s making national headlines.
The NHL’s track record with off ice problems is rather bleak. Look at their handling of CTE claims, their brief involvement with the Hockey Diversity Alliance, or even the mental health crisis we saw a few years ago where the hockey world lost a number of former enforcers in a matter of months to suicide. While leagues like the NFL can rightly be accused of being reactive to matters as opposed to proactively addressing the problems beforehand, the NHL more oft than not couldn’t even be classified as reactionary. Willfully ignorant seems a more apt description of how they choose to address issues of the medical, sexual, or criminal nature.
I don’t purport to have all the facts on the incidents in question which took place in 2010. Journalists like Rick Westhead or Katie Strang have done a phenomenal job of covering this story since it broke, and I encourage you to check out their work if you want more information on the allegations levied against the Blackhawks organization. But what usually holds true is that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And right now it would appear as though there’s a 5 alarm blaze going on in Chicago. Meanwhile Gary Bettman’s solution apparently is to stick his head in the sand and hope that the Windy City blows this story over sooner rather than later.
So whether it’s in Montreal or Tampa Bay that the most beautiful trophy in all of sports is handed out this year, when the commissioner comes on the ice to present the Cup he’ll be roundly booed. Only this time rather than being ceremonial in nature, Bettman will have earned every bit of displeasure hurled his way this summer. For a bar which is set exceedingly low to begin with, the NHL has once more failed to meet the most basic of expectations.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner