Photo Credit: USA Today
The NHL has a few black eyes that most know of right now. First things first, Commissioner Gary Bettman defended the NHL’s decisions and discipline handed out/not handed out, following an investigation into the Chicago Blackhawks’ handling of sexual assault allegations in 2010, to which Joel Quenneville eventually resigned and Kevin Cheveldayoff not getting disciplined following his limited role with the Blackhawks front office in 2010.
In his first public comments since a report detailed the events of Brad Aldrich sexually assaulting Kyle Beach, and Beach’s own interview with TSN’s Rick Westhead. Bettman called the Blackhawks organization’s $2 million fine significant, and substantial.
Let me make this clear. There is no amount of money, nor anything that can help the Kyle Beach situation. However, fining the Blackhawks $2 million isn’t substantial enough like Bettman says it is in regards to Beach. The Arizona Coyotes had draft picks removed for scouting combine infractions, and no picks have been removed from the Blackhawks yet. That’s why some do not trust the NHL, they miss the mark time and time again, just like the Akim Aliu case (We will get to that more later). Bettman stated, “Different context, different facts,” when asked about harsher punishments elsewhere in the NHL.
Bettman did express remorse for the mishandling of the independent Blackhawks investigation, and he was asked if Quenneville was given an ultimatum to step down, to which Bettman responded defiantly, “Joel ultimately included that the most sensible course of action was for him to resign. Ultimately Quenneville decided to resign, and that is a decision I agreed.”
“He had been behind the bench for the past 867 games. I didn’t want him to feel that he was being prejudged. While it may have optically not been the best look, I was more concerned with the substance than the look.” – Gary Bettman
He also stated, “Kevin was such a minor player in this. He had been with the Blackhawks for nine months. He was an assistant general manager with fairly limited responsibilities. This was not something that he not only had no responsibility for that based on what was available to him in his minor, relatively, position at the time, he had no reason to believe that anything other than the right things were going on,” Bettman said.
Bill Daly said the Blackhawks first contacted the NHL last December concerning possible civil litigation. The team told the league it had no merit. According to Daly, the first time the league learned of the specific allegations was May. Bettman said they were no given no updates, nor were they briefed on the investigations findings that were made public last week.
Gary Bettman on watching the interview with Kyle Beach:
“I was horrified, emotional, sorry.”
Now to another black eye by the NHL, this time in regards to Akim Aliu, a Nigerian born Canadian-Ukrainian former professional ice hockey player. Bill Daly said the Bill Peters was complete, in regards to Aliu. He brought Peters’ racist insensitive comments to the forefront, to which Daly said the NHL has contacted Aliu’s representative. Aliu’s representative responded shortly there after saying via Twitter, “This is news to me & not true.” Ben Mieselas further stated they have not reached out.
The greatest fans on Earth are left pondering if they can trust the NHL again, for good reason. It appears it’s just a black eye after black eye, all caused by the NHL themselves. Stay with us for all the latest news in regards to the NHL, and these two cases in particular.
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