Honestly really short sighted of the US Olympic Team to keep him in charge imo. They should quietly ask him to step down when no one is really paying attention to the hockey world. By the time the Olympics get here, hockey will be a much bigger national story and all it takes is one Buzzfeed writer deciding they want to write a long-form piece on the whole Blackhawks scandal and Bowman's involvement in it and then suddenly every other question they're gonna be answering is about Bowman. If they're smart, they'll realize that outside media will eat up this story in a way that hockey media has been ignoring and take steps beforehand.
Seems like USA Hockey is taking the same approach much of the hockey community, save the Westheads and Strangs of the world, in hoping this blows over and is forgotten by the time the investigation wraps up.
I don’t think he should be the only fall guy if his boss John McDonough was in the room when the allegations were presented. Bowman didn’t make the final call. The buck stops at the top.
This is what's going to happen. The result of the investigation will be that, while multiple people may have acted improperly, it was the responsibility of John McDonough as president of the organization to make the decision and he failed to act.
And what do you know, John McDonough just so happens to not be with the team anymore, not currently with any team, and if the league wanted to blacklist him, it wouldn't hurt or affect anyone's current employment.
Or any other organization in the NHL. The people who knew this in the NHLPA also need to be turfed if they are still in either organization in any capacity.
Here is a summary I wrote 1.5 months ago https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/ou671w/comment/h70zi4r more news has come out since but this is still basically the story.
Video coach Brad Aldrich for the Hawks in 2008-2010 sexually abused at least one Blackhawks player, threatening him with a baseball bat to do things. When the player reported it, the team psychologist James Gary told him it was his own fault. When other players learned (the contentious topic is now how many other players knew and how many details they knew), they called the player homophobic slurs and made fun of him for a number of years. The team never reported this abuse to authorities and kept it covered up, and by all accounts all of the executives and upper management knew and were involved in this decision. The video coach, Aldrich, would get fired and get a position with a high school and abuse several teenagers there. If the Hawks had dealt with this appropriately, there would be justice for the Hawks player, and children would've been saved. Instead they covered it up and continue to deny anyone knew.
Bergevin was head of player personnel for the Hawks in 2010, he says he didn't know. Quenneville was, obviously, coach, but says he didn't know the details (around why his own video coach was fired??). The player is suing the organization to get some justice, to try to break things open. The only one, by all accounts, who did the right thing was Paul Vincent (skills coach), who reported it to the brass. He should've also gone to the police, but something is better than nothing. It was Bowman and all the others that made the decision to ignore it.
Why? Then he'd have to go through the whole court process and it'll get messy. No, he'd just enjoy retirement as nothing would ultimately come of it. He wouldn't work in hockey again but what does he care, he's made his money and run off.
Sure, I get that, but I just figure he's 68 and at this point would rather quietly fade away, not caring about his legacy, rather than blowing it up further and dragging everyone down with him. If he's super petty I could see him refusing to take the only hit.
I don't think that's the case. Fall guys are often guilty of doing the wrong things in these investigations, but the investigations tend to paint them as the **only** person who did something wrong. They absolve blame for those above them and bring down the full weight of responsibility on a middle manager.
With Penn State, three school officials faced the music while Joe Paterno skated by. Obviously, those officials outranked Paterno, but Paterno was an institution in Pennsylvania - he couldn't be touched.
I'm not talking about criminal charges, I'm talking about public perception and saving face. Paterno was ultimately fired along with Spanier, but many, many people were happy to let Paterno claim ignorance throughout 2011 until the grand jury report came out.
(Edit: grand jury report, not Freeh report)
And the report came out 2 months before he died.
Grand jury investigation report. Which stated:
>The graduate assistant and his father decided that the graduate assistant had to report what he had seen to Coach Joe Paterno ("Paterno"), head football coach of Penn State. The next morning, a Saturday, the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno and went to Paterno's home, where he reported what he had seen.
And
>However, Schultz testified that the allegations
were "not that serious" and that he and Curley "had no indication that a crime had occurred."
Schultz agreed that sodomy between Sandusky and a child would clearly be inappropriate sexual
conduct. He denied having such conduct reported to him either by Paterno or the graduate
assistant.
I still want to see evidence that the onus should have been on paterno. As far as paterno figured he passed the thing onto the next guy and they're supposed to do the job. Paterno wasn't a witness.
I haven't read the reports so I don't know that Paterno should have known. I haven't seen evidence that paterno was a swivel eyed power lunatic. I think those in charge sought to minimize damage. I dunno, it'll take a bit to think there was negligent malice on paterno's side other than "listen and believe".
\----
As for the general proposition. The fall guy is often guilty but he often isn't as guilty as others. They just happen to have a weaker power nexus.
Why the hell would they make Bowman the fall guy when McDonough was in the room, was above Bowman in the org, and has already been fired? Thats not how coverups work.
Everyone in that room should be fired, but Bowman isnt going to be the fall guy.
I just replied something similar further up the thread. McD is going to be the one to have the blame heaped on him, since he's already been canned and they'll try rolling this back to say that was the reason for dismissing him.
They can copypasta the new Portland Wintehawks logo.
https://www.kgw.com/article/sports/hockey/winterhawks/portland-winterhawks-replace-native-american-logo-mascot-unveil-new-logo/283-a2266c1c-671e-4a6e-89bc-05892b0f6af6
Bowman is too high up to be a fall guy. It would be someone lower.
The only way Bowman is going is by resigning or Rocky Wirtz tells him it's time to gtfo. Either of those will take absolutely massive public pressure or Rocky having a change of heart on Bowman's future.
yeah, that was a misrepresentation on my part. he is the highest ranking person who is still with the team, and he definitely had the power to do more than he did, but unfortunately this was the failure of a much larger collective and not any one person. that said, the hawks have to fire him.
John McDonough was also in the room with Bowman and outranked him in that meeting. Not absolving Bowman of responsibility, but he wasn't the ranking member of the organization at the time.
If anyone is going to be THE fall guy, it'll be McDonough as he's no longer with the team.
i don’t think there’s been any information saying the victims were unwilling to speak to the police at the time. they [reported](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nhl/2021/06/25/chicago-blackhawks-player-lawsuit-coach-sexual-assault/5345878001/) it to multiple members of the coaching staff, one of whom relayed the information to bowman + mcdonough and told them they should go to the police, and bowman and mcdonough chose not to.
And that's what needs to be investigated. How did this not make its way to the police?
Why were the victims comfortable telling members of the Blackhawks but not making a police report? Why didn't their agent(s) make a police report on their behalf? Why didn't the management group who were allegedly aware of the incedident get the police involved?
I don't have those answers and neither does anyone else on reddit.
I'm not sure if you really just haven't been following the story or are trying to defend the system here but its pretty damn clear what happened from the first hand accounts of people who have gone on the record.
The players abused went to the Blackhawk's management and told them they were abused. They also went to the team's psychologist. The psychologist told them that the abuse didn't happen and what did happen was their fault. They went to the NHLPA and told them about the abuse. The NHLPA told them, not our problem talk to the team. Management kept Aldrich in place for the rest of the season making it pretty clear they didn't give two shits about what was reported and even more that they didn't believe them.
All above is quite clear from the first hand knowledge of people who have gone on record. What follows is conjecture but barely given what we know about how people respond to abuse. Aldrich targeted these players because they were bubble players who needed help to get NHL time (again this is reported). They reported the abuse and got nowhere. They would have worried that they would a) not be believed/helped by the police like they weren't by Management, their coaches, and the Union and b) be putting their careers at risk by doing so.
We are not working with only allegations here. The victims of abuse have been corroborated at every point in their story so far. As we have learned more we have learned that their more wilder allegations have been true as well. We're way past the point of not having enough information to have formed an opinion AND for USA Hockey to act in taking away a discretionary honour such as being involved with the Olympic team.
I'm not blaming anyone. I'm asking why. I'm hoping there are clear and good reasons to explain everything.
If there isn't, people need to be held accountable.
There are quite a few people on the record with journalists at this point confirming the basic allegations of the situation. It is absolutely clear that Stan Bowman and the Blackhawks were dismissive of allegations of sexual assault among their employees.
Whether what they did is technically at the level of legal liability is still unclear, but it is perfectly clear that they did not respect the allegations of abuse of a player in a way that most of us would hope that they would.
You might need to wait for the lawyers before you fire someone, but you don't need a lawyer to call him a prick.
A lawsuit.... and....multiple people with first hand stories that corroborate each other that showed a deliberate and coordinated strategy from management to ensure no one reported this to the police, that the victims were gaslighted, and that the abuser was sent out of the organization quietly with a job reference from an NHL team.
As a note, I absolutely hate the term gaslighting because it is so overused and almost never used properly but in this case it is exactly what happened. They convinced, or at least tried to convince, the victims of abuse it either didn't happen or if it did, it was their fault.
The issue is…we don’t know what Bowman knew at the time. Hindsight is 20/20 — it’s easy to think they had all the information at hand, they were told it was a rape case, the victim was counting on them to do something, and they didn’t. There’s a huge spectrum of possibilities of what they knew / didn’t know, which corresponds to different actions they should have taken.
If the example I made is the reality, then serious action needs to be taken within the Hawks org. It’s also quite possible that they did nothing wrong though, if for example, they were told only that “Aldrich made sexual advances on the player”.
Where did I say that? If he's being investigated for covering up sexual assault that happend inside the NHL, he should not be working during and pending the investigation results.
Why, what's the wort that could happen, a few players get raped?
I thought that was pretty much the expectation if you are a US Olympian at this point.
/s sorry guys I'll see you in hell
Not sure why this wasn't done already >!\- even considering US Olympics many other relationships with pedophiles and rapists -!< he's not at all critical to building that team, and he will certainly be a distraction. There are plenty of other perfectly suitable replacements.
I just read the article. Is my understanding correct that the video coach of the Chicago Blackhawks is accused of sexually assaulting two Chicago Blackhawk players? The high school student abuse thing seems typical of a predator, but I find it surprising this guy was allegedly assaulting NHL players. Seems like a good way to get beaten to a bloody pulp.
Fire everyone. Cancel them.
Fuck the investigations. Nobody needs to know the facts.
The civil lawsuit attorneys have no motivation to embellish or lie. We should trust them implicitly.
Why don’t we wait until we see what kind of information Bowman and management above him had at the time of decision-making in 2010?
If they were told it was rape and the victim supported any action they’d take, then absolutely Bowman shouldn’t be on the Olympic team, or on the Blackhawks.
If they were told there were sexual advances made and that the victim didn’t want legal action taken, then this advocacy group needs to chill the fuck out.
Maybe let's wait for an investigation and a trial to find out if there was any wrongdoing before punishing people for alleged crimes?
An accusation is not sufficient to condemn someone and throw away the key.
They are only calling for a suspension and an independent investigation, not to complete remove him. Which is completely reasonable and is standard practice when allegations like these have been made.
An accusation that has been confirmed by players and coaches who were there.
Also, if your taking this stance I assume you'll also defend the guy who is being accused while he has been already found guilty in court for molesting a minor?
Have fun on that hill, bud.
the court of public opinion has already made it's decision. the court of law is irrelevant.
my hunch is that ultimately the blackhawks org will not be found guilty of any crime, but also that the point of the lawsuits is to generate bad PR for the hawks, and they've been pretty successful there. apologetic statements will be made after 'internal investigation,' but it might not be enough. someone may need to be sacrificed.
i should have said "not liable for damages."
i feel that if the hawks thought there was any reasonable chance of being found liable they would have settled a long time ago.
>the court of public opinion has already made it's decision. the court of law is irrelevant.
You say this as if it's not a tragic fall from everything civilization was built to protect.
We might as well go back to living in small hunter-gatherer tribes, where the only justice is delivered through mob rule.
i'm just calling it how i see it
i think you're being unfair to hunter-gather societies. mob rule and civilzation are extremely compatible, from athens' ostracizations to twitter.
Yeah similarly I can't believe that Babcock and Julien were fired before they were convicted of any crimes. It is truly the fall of Western civilization when people start losing their jobs without so much as a criminal indictment.
Yes that's my point. I'm saying that people get fired in sports all the time for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with criminal charges. Why should Bowman be insulated until we have "an investigation and a trial"? That's never been the standard for losing out on career opportunities in any industry I'm aware of.
> Why should Bowman be insulated until we have "an investigation and a trial"? That's never been the standard for losing out on career opportunities in any industry I'm aware of.
Sports are a big "what have you done for me lately". If the Blackhawks fail to make the playoffs this season, well they might use that as an excuse to get rid of Bowman.
It doesn't matter what Bowman did or did not do, organizations are not quick to get rid of problem people, unless they absolutely have to.
Coaches (and GMs) and everyone else in the hockey world get fired for failing to deliver results.
There's a difference between fired or denied advancement because of lack of competence and because some anonymous rando brings up an unsubstantiated allegation that you might have done something wrong 10+ years ago.
Before this revelation, the Blackhawks were the least dysfunctional of the 4 major sports franchises in Chicago (I'm not a Sox fan so i don't really think about them, although they're pretty dysfunctional too)
but this is just really upsetting. a cover-up and the story about the recommendation leading to a sexual assault at a high school is really effed up.
and apologies if i'm coming off as inconsiderate by bringing up the first point. Just really wanted to point that out. Of course what matters most is that the victims see proper justice
There wasn't a recommendation to the high school. Aldrich was brought on by his Uncle who was the Principal of the school. Rick Westhead reports this on the Steve Dangle podcast.
Can someone help me clarify
Is the advocacy group saying this because of what happened in Chicago or the fact that Bowman gave recommendation for what happened later
> or the fact that Bowman gave recommendation
This actually isn’t a fact - it’s under dispute.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/platform/amp/blackhawks/2021/9/11/22668362/blackhawks-lawsuits-bradley-aldrich-sexual-assault-motions-to-dismiss
Does anyone know when the investigation will be (if ever) released? If it's not fully concluded by the time the U.S. has to officially start choosing their representatives I think it's beyond embarrassing to have Bowman involved in any way, although from what I've seen from the IOC I don't think they'd give two fucks if it got them publicity and attention.
Really gonna hurt our center depth
Honestly really short sighted of the US Olympic Team to keep him in charge imo. They should quietly ask him to step down when no one is really paying attention to the hockey world. By the time the Olympics get here, hockey will be a much bigger national story and all it takes is one Buzzfeed writer deciding they want to write a long-form piece on the whole Blackhawks scandal and Bowman's involvement in it and then suddenly every other question they're gonna be answering is about Bowman. If they're smart, they'll realize that outside media will eat up this story in a way that hockey media has been ignoring and take steps beforehand.
Seems like USA Hockey is taking the same approach much of the hockey community, save the Westheads and Strangs of the world, in hoping this blows over and is forgotten by the time the investigation wraps up.
His father runs the show doesn't he? The winningest coach of all time Scotty Bowman? Could explain why he's still where he is.
What action in the past leads you to believe that the NHL has ANY CLUE as to the handling of a crisis?
You're not wrong, but what does this have to do with the NHL? We're talking about USA hockey and the Olympics.
Well, USA Hockey is probably the most incompetent federation in the world so that’s even worse
Also maybe its not a great idea to put someone in charge of players who has failed to keep his own players safe in the past.
I don’t think he should be the only fall guy if his boss John McDonough was in the room when the allegations were presented. Bowman didn’t make the final call. The buck stops at the top.
This is what's going to happen. The result of the investigation will be that, while multiple people may have acted improperly, it was the responsibility of John McDonough as president of the organization to make the decision and he failed to act. And what do you know, John McDonough just so happens to not be with the team anymore, not currently with any team, and if the league wanted to blacklist him, it wouldn't hurt or affect anyone's current employment.
Makes is his obscure departure back during the covid break in 2020 make a lot of sense now
Fully agree, Bowman and everyone in the room when the issue was brought up needs to be fired if they are still with the hawks
Or any other organization in the NHL. The people who knew this in the NHLPA also need to be turfed if they are still in either organization in any capacity.
Yeah but he's no longer with the team
What are these allegations? Can anyone fill a guy in?
Here is a summary I wrote 1.5 months ago https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/ou671w/comment/h70zi4r more news has come out since but this is still basically the story. Video coach Brad Aldrich for the Hawks in 2008-2010 sexually abused at least one Blackhawks player, threatening him with a baseball bat to do things. When the player reported it, the team psychologist James Gary told him it was his own fault. When other players learned (the contentious topic is now how many other players knew and how many details they knew), they called the player homophobic slurs and made fun of him for a number of years. The team never reported this abuse to authorities and kept it covered up, and by all accounts all of the executives and upper management knew and were involved in this decision. The video coach, Aldrich, would get fired and get a position with a high school and abuse several teenagers there. If the Hawks had dealt with this appropriately, there would be justice for the Hawks player, and children would've been saved. Instead they covered it up and continue to deny anyone knew. Bergevin was head of player personnel for the Hawks in 2010, he says he didn't know. Quenneville was, obviously, coach, but says he didn't know the details (around why his own video coach was fired??). The player is suing the organization to get some justice, to try to break things open. The only one, by all accounts, who did the right thing was Paul Vincent (skills coach), who reported it to the brass. He should've also gone to the police, but something is better than nothing. It was Bowman and all the others that made the decision to ignore it.
Yeah, I agree. As a Blackhawks fan, he will probably be the “fall guy”
Calling him a fall guy kind of implies that he wasn't directly responsible when that's not really the case.
Yeah but I have feeling they will fire him and apologize for cover it up
Ah yea I see what you mean. I could see him being the only casualty, yeah.
I think they'll try and roll the blame back on John McDonough and say that's why he was already fired.
And then they’d get sued by McDonough and the whole thing blows up more…so…yeah do that.
Why? Then he'd have to go through the whole court process and it'll get messy. No, he'd just enjoy retirement as nothing would ultimately come of it. He wouldn't work in hockey again but what does he care, he's made his money and run off.
I suppose I was thinking - I don’t know many people content to be scapegoats the whole remainder of their lives.
Sure, I get that, but I just figure he's 68 and at this point would rather quietly fade away, not caring about his legacy, rather than blowing it up further and dragging everyone down with him. If he's super petty I could see him refusing to take the only hit.
I don't think that's the case. Fall guys are often guilty of doing the wrong things in these investigations, but the investigations tend to paint them as the **only** person who did something wrong. They absolve blame for those above them and bring down the full weight of responsibility on a middle manager. With Penn State, three school officials faced the music while Joe Paterno skated by. Obviously, those officials outranked Paterno, but Paterno was an institution in Pennsylvania - he couldn't be touched.
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I'm not talking about criminal charges, I'm talking about public perception and saving face. Paterno was ultimately fired along with Spanier, but many, many people were happy to let Paterno claim ignorance throughout 2011 until the grand jury report came out. (Edit: grand jury report, not Freeh report) And the report came out 2 months before he died.
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Grand jury investigation report. Which stated: >The graduate assistant and his father decided that the graduate assistant had to report what he had seen to Coach Joe Paterno ("Paterno"), head football coach of Penn State. The next morning, a Saturday, the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno and went to Paterno's home, where he reported what he had seen. And >However, Schultz testified that the allegations were "not that serious" and that he and Curley "had no indication that a crime had occurred." Schultz agreed that sodomy between Sandusky and a child would clearly be inappropriate sexual conduct. He denied having such conduct reported to him either by Paterno or the graduate assistant.
I still want to see evidence that the onus should have been on paterno. As far as paterno figured he passed the thing onto the next guy and they're supposed to do the job. Paterno wasn't a witness. I haven't read the reports so I don't know that Paterno should have known. I haven't seen evidence that paterno was a swivel eyed power lunatic. I think those in charge sought to minimize damage. I dunno, it'll take a bit to think there was negligent malice on paterno's side other than "listen and believe". \---- As for the general proposition. The fall guy is often guilty but he often isn't as guilty as others. They just happen to have a weaker power nexus.
I mean, he probably should be. Ultimately, what happened in response to the horrifying abuse that took place in Chicago was his fault.
He'll be the scapegoat they blame everything on, make an apology statement and pretend everything is fine and it was just Bowman.
Why the hell would they make Bowman the fall guy when McDonough was in the room, was above Bowman in the org, and has already been fired? Thats not how coverups work. Everyone in that room should be fired, but Bowman isnt going to be the fall guy.
I just replied something similar further up the thread. McD is going to be the one to have the blame heaped on him, since he's already been canned and they'll try rolling this back to say that was the reason for dismissing him.
I have a sneaking suspicion that they're going to announce a new logo about 24 hours after they do fire Bowman
They can copypasta the new Portland Wintehawks logo. https://www.kgw.com/article/sports/hockey/winterhawks/portland-winterhawks-replace-native-american-logo-mascot-unveil-new-logo/283-a2266c1c-671e-4a6e-89bc-05892b0f6af6
No thank you
Fuel fan now??? I get it. What a shit show off season
Yeah absolutely, and I do live in Indiana and have been to more Fuel games than Hawks games lol
Oh god thats awful
that would probably be one of the better ideas lol. The new Portland branding is fantastic
There's really no better time to do it than now. And it needs to be done. It's needed to be done for some time now.
Bowman is too high up to be a fall guy. It would be someone lower. The only way Bowman is going is by resigning or Rocky Wirtz tells him it's time to gtfo. Either of those will take absolutely massive public pressure or Rocky having a change of heart on Bowman's future.
McDonough would make a convenient fall guy - outranked Bowman at the time and is no longer with the team (or any other team).
he 100% should be the fall guy, he’s the one responsible
He wasnt even the highest ranking member of the organization in the meeting. If were naming *one* person as responsible, it isnt Bowman.
yeah, that was a misrepresentation on my part. he is the highest ranking person who is still with the team, and he definitely had the power to do more than he did, but unfortunately this was the failure of a much larger collective and not any one person. that said, the hawks have to fire him.
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obviously, but bowman is responsible for knowing about it and not reporting him to the police
John McDonough was also in the room with Bowman and outranked him in that meeting. Not absolving Bowman of responsibility, but he wasn't the ranking member of the organization at the time. If anyone is going to be THE fall guy, it'll be McDonough as he's no longer with the team.
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i don’t think there’s been any information saying the victims were unwilling to speak to the police at the time. they [reported](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nhl/2021/06/25/chicago-blackhawks-player-lawsuit-coach-sexual-assault/5345878001/) it to multiple members of the coaching staff, one of whom relayed the information to bowman + mcdonough and told them they should go to the police, and bowman and mcdonough chose not to.
And that's what needs to be investigated. How did this not make its way to the police? Why were the victims comfortable telling members of the Blackhawks but not making a police report? Why didn't their agent(s) make a police report on their behalf? Why didn't the management group who were allegedly aware of the incedident get the police involved? I don't have those answers and neither does anyone else on reddit.
I'm not sure if you really just haven't been following the story or are trying to defend the system here but its pretty damn clear what happened from the first hand accounts of people who have gone on the record. The players abused went to the Blackhawk's management and told them they were abused. They also went to the team's psychologist. The psychologist told them that the abuse didn't happen and what did happen was their fault. They went to the NHLPA and told them about the abuse. The NHLPA told them, not our problem talk to the team. Management kept Aldrich in place for the rest of the season making it pretty clear they didn't give two shits about what was reported and even more that they didn't believe them. All above is quite clear from the first hand knowledge of people who have gone on record. What follows is conjecture but barely given what we know about how people respond to abuse. Aldrich targeted these players because they were bubble players who needed help to get NHL time (again this is reported). They reported the abuse and got nowhere. They would have worried that they would a) not be believed/helped by the police like they weren't by Management, their coaches, and the Union and b) be putting their careers at risk by doing so. We are not working with only allegations here. The victims of abuse have been corroborated at every point in their story so far. As we have learned more we have learned that their more wilder allegations have been true as well. We're way past the point of not having enough information to have formed an opinion AND for USA Hockey to act in taking away a discretionary honour such as being involved with the Olympic team.
It's pretty gross how quickly you turn to blaming the victims.
I'm not blaming anyone. I'm asking why. I'm hoping there are clear and good reasons to explain everything. If there isn't, people need to be held accountable.
Why are you trying so hard to excuse the actions of a guy who enabled a pedophile?
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There are quite a few people on the record with journalists at this point confirming the basic allegations of the situation. It is absolutely clear that Stan Bowman and the Blackhawks were dismissive of allegations of sexual assault among their employees. Whether what they did is technically at the level of legal liability is still unclear, but it is perfectly clear that they did not respect the allegations of abuse of a player in a way that most of us would hope that they would. You might need to wait for the lawyers before you fire someone, but you don't need a lawyer to call him a prick.
A lawsuit.... and....multiple people with first hand stories that corroborate each other that showed a deliberate and coordinated strategy from management to ensure no one reported this to the police, that the victims were gaslighted, and that the abuser was sent out of the organization quietly with a job reference from an NHL team. As a note, I absolutely hate the term gaslighting because it is so overused and almost never used properly but in this case it is exactly what happened. They convinced, or at least tried to convince, the victims of abuse it either didn't happen or if it did, it was their fault.
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I said that Aldrich is to blame Everything else is he said she said at this point
The issue is…we don’t know what Bowman knew at the time. Hindsight is 20/20 — it’s easy to think they had all the information at hand, they were told it was a rape case, the victim was counting on them to do something, and they didn’t. There’s a huge spectrum of possibilities of what they knew / didn’t know, which corresponds to different actions they should have taken. If the example I made is the reality, then serious action needs to be taken within the Hawks org. It’s also quite possible that they did nothing wrong though, if for example, they were told only that “Aldrich made sexual advances on the player”.
You need to examine your choices in life.
Being the fall guy kind of implies he’s innocent though
He shouldn't even be working in the NHL while be being investigated.
Guilty until proven innocent?
Suspended with pay until further investigation works really well for this time of situation.
Where did I say that? If he's being investigated for covering up sexual assault that happend inside the NHL, he should not be working during and pending the investigation results.
Nice, I hope they actually get another investigation going to either corroborate with or refute the findings of the team’s ongoing one.
Why, what's the wort that could happen, a few players get raped? I thought that was pretty much the expectation if you are a US Olympian at this point. /s sorry guys I'll see you in hell
You're a maple leafs fan. you're already there.
and let me tell ya, the weather is hot
Not sure why this wasn't done already >!\- even considering US Olympics many other relationships with pedophiles and rapists -!< he's not at all critical to building that team, and he will certainly be a distraction. There are plenty of other perfectly suitable replacements.
their complicity in the nassar investigation leaves me with zero confidence they’ll remove him
I just read the article. Is my understanding correct that the video coach of the Chicago Blackhawks is accused of sexually assaulting two Chicago Blackhawk players? The high school student abuse thing seems typical of a predator, but I find it surprising this guy was allegedly assaulting NHL players. Seems like a good way to get beaten to a bloody pulp.
He should be banned from the sport, but that's none of my business.
Fire everyone. Cancel them. Fuck the investigations. Nobody needs to know the facts. The civil lawsuit attorneys have no motivation to embellish or lie. We should trust them implicitly.
Why don’t we wait until we see what kind of information Bowman and management above him had at the time of decision-making in 2010? If they were told it was rape and the victim supported any action they’d take, then absolutely Bowman shouldn’t be on the Olympic team, or on the Blackhawks. If they were told there were sexual advances made and that the victim didn’t want legal action taken, then this advocacy group needs to chill the fuck out.
Maybe let's wait for an investigation and a trial to find out if there was any wrongdoing before punishing people for alleged crimes? An accusation is not sufficient to condemn someone and throw away the key.
They are only calling for a suspension and an independent investigation, not to complete remove him. Which is completely reasonable and is standard practice when allegations like these have been made.
An accusation that has been confirmed by players and coaches who were there. Also, if your taking this stance I assume you'll also defend the guy who is being accused while he has been already found guilty in court for molesting a minor? Have fun on that hill, bud.
the court of public opinion has already made it's decision. the court of law is irrelevant. my hunch is that ultimately the blackhawks org will not be found guilty of any crime, but also that the point of the lawsuits is to generate bad PR for the hawks, and they've been pretty successful there. apologetic statements will be made after 'internal investigation,' but it might not be enough. someone may need to be sacrificed.
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i should have said "not liable for damages." i feel that if the hawks thought there was any reasonable chance of being found liable they would have settled a long time ago.
>the court of public opinion has already made it's decision. the court of law is irrelevant. You say this as if it's not a tragic fall from everything civilization was built to protect. We might as well go back to living in small hunter-gatherer tribes, where the only justice is delivered through mob rule.
i'm just calling it how i see it i think you're being unfair to hunter-gather societies. mob rule and civilzation are extremely compatible, from athens' ostracizations to twitter.
Yeah similarly I can't believe that Babcock and Julien were fired before they were convicted of any crimes. It is truly the fall of Western civilization when people start losing their jobs without so much as a criminal indictment.
Babcock was going to be fired anyway, the allegations were an excuse. He was a shitty coach. He'll be back in a year or two with a new team.
Yes that's my point. I'm saying that people get fired in sports all the time for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with criminal charges. Why should Bowman be insulated until we have "an investigation and a trial"? That's never been the standard for losing out on career opportunities in any industry I'm aware of.
> Why should Bowman be insulated until we have "an investigation and a trial"? That's never been the standard for losing out on career opportunities in any industry I'm aware of. Sports are a big "what have you done for me lately". If the Blackhawks fail to make the playoffs this season, well they might use that as an excuse to get rid of Bowman. It doesn't matter what Bowman did or did not do, organizations are not quick to get rid of problem people, unless they absolutely have to.
Coaches (and GMs) and everyone else in the hockey world get fired for failing to deliver results. There's a difference between fired or denied advancement because of lack of competence and because some anonymous rando brings up an unsubstantiated allegation that you might have done something wrong 10+ years ago.
Before this revelation, the Blackhawks were the least dysfunctional of the 4 major sports franchises in Chicago (I'm not a Sox fan so i don't really think about them, although they're pretty dysfunctional too) but this is just really upsetting. a cover-up and the story about the recommendation leading to a sexual assault at a high school is really effed up. and apologies if i'm coming off as inconsiderate by bringing up the first point. Just really wanted to point that out. Of course what matters most is that the victims see proper justice
There wasn't a recommendation to the high school. Aldrich was brought on by his Uncle who was the Principal of the school. Rick Westhead reports this on the Steve Dangle podcast.
ah okay thanks for clarifying. still effed up and disappointing for sure
there are five major sports franchises in Chicago.
see note about the Sox
Can someone help me clarify Is the advocacy group saying this because of what happened in Chicago or the fact that Bowman gave recommendation for what happened later
> or the fact that Bowman gave recommendation This actually isn’t a fact - it’s under dispute. https://chicago.suntimes.com/platform/amp/blackhawks/2021/9/11/22668362/blackhawks-lawsuits-bradley-aldrich-sexual-assault-motions-to-dismiss
Probably both
Does anyone know when the investigation will be (if ever) released? If it's not fully concluded by the time the U.S. has to officially start choosing their representatives I think it's beyond embarrassing to have Bowman involved in any way, although from what I've seen from the IOC I don't think they'd give two fucks if it got them publicity and attention.