Chip Minemyer: Blackhawks guilty of same tragic inaction as happened at Penn State

Oct. 30—The Chicago Blackhawks sexual abuse scandal playing out now is tragically reminiscent of the Jerry Sandusky case at Penn State — as the 10th anniversary of Sandusky's indictment nears.

Sandusky, the former defensive coordinator for the Nittany Lions, was charged on Nov. 11, 2011, with numerous counts of sexual assault involving young boys in his care.

The following summer, he was found guilty on 45 counts and sentenced to prison, where he remains despite several attempts at a new trial.

The scandal brought down Penn State President Graham Spanier, legendary football coach Joe Paterno and administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, and led to NCAA sanctions against Penn State.

Their failure? They were told and took no action — turning a horrific crime into an embarrassing institutional catastrophe.

You wonder when we'll learn that dirt swept under a rug doesn't go away.

The Chicago Blackhawks situation goes back to 2010, when a young player accused an assistant coach of sexual assault. The allegations were ignored by team leadership, a new report says, as the team rolled to a Stanley Cup championship that season.

The player — Kyle Beach, who this past week went public with his story — filed a lawsuit under the name "John Doe," recounting the incident when he was a 20-year-old rookie call-up from the minor leagues.

He alleged that he notified team officials of the assault on May 23, 2010, and nothing was done until a meeting June 14 — after the Stanley Cup finals and amid celebrations that his attacker attended.

"I reported this and I was made aware that it made it all the way up the chain of command ... and nothing happened," Beach said in an interview with TSN out of Canada.

"It was like his life was the same as the day before. Same every day.

"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."

Beach said he felt "alone and dark" after the attack.

Now playing hockey in Germany, Beach filed his lawsuit in May 2021, alleging that he was abused in 2010 by then-Blackhawks assistant coach Brad Aldrich — whose name is engraved on the Stanley Cup.

A second lawsuit now claims Aldrich later assaulted a student in Michigan.

A CBS sports time line shows that Aldrich was accused of assaulting two men at Miami (Ohio) University in the fall of 2012, when he was director of hockey operations at the school, and then allegedly sexually assaulted a high school player in March 2013 in Houghton, Michigan.

He was eventually convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct and sentenced to nine months in jail.

CBS reported that police in Michigan sought information about why Aldrich had resigned his position with the Blackhawks in 2010, but got little cooperation.

After Beach's lawsuit earlier this year, the Blackhawks hired an outside prosecutor to conduct an investigation of the allegations.

The 107-page report released last week said Aldrich also "engaged in an unwanted sexual advance on a Blackhawks intern" during that time, and then left the team and continued his career. Investigators interviewed 139 witnesses and gathered 49 boxes of hard-copy records, the Associated Press reported.

The fallout was predictable.

The National Hockey League fined the team $2 million for "the organization's inadequate internal procedures and insufficient and untimely response," and Stan Bowman, general manager and president of hockey operations, resigned.

On Thursday, Joel Quenneville — coach of the Blackhawks in 2010 — stepped down as coach of the Florida Panthers after a meeting with the NHL commissioner. Winnipeg Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, who was also with the Chicago team in 2010, is to meet Monday with NHL officials, according to media reports.

The investigation named those individuals, and also Donald Fehr, head of the NHL players' association, noting he was contacted twice about allegations concerning Aldrich.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters: "I admire Kyle Beach for his courage in coming forward, am appalled that he was so poorly supported upon making his initial claim and in the 11 years since, and am sorry for all he has endured."

That's what happens when we put winning and image above the plight of individuals.

Penn State has undergone a transformation of policies and procedures in the decade since Sandusky — inspired, former President Rod Erickson said, by "respect for the victims and the victims' families."

If only these organizations — in sports and elsewhere — would take that approach from the outset.

Like Sandusky's victims, Kyle Beach deserved better from those in power.

He deserved respect.

Chip Minemyer is the editor of The Tribune-Democrat and TribDem.com, and CNHI regional editor for Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and West Virginia. He can be reached at 814-532-5091. Follow him on Twitter @MinemyerChip.

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