NHL Notebook: Kyle Beach’s story exposes ugly flaws within hockey culture - and need for an overhaul

The dust has yet to settle on a week that should dishearten and disgust even the most ardent hockey-lifers. But the illusion of change already seems to have permeated its way throughout the NHL.

The Florida Panthers have a new boss patrolling their bench after Joel Quenneville’s resignation. Over in Chicago, Stan Bowman’s reign as Blackhawks’ GM and president of hockey ops is over — as is his right-hand man in Al MacIssac.

Across the aisle, Donald Fehr — executive director of the NHL Players Association — is the latest authority figure to feel the heat, with the players’ union scheduling an executive board call with representatives from all 32 NHL clubs on Monday.  

Yes, more dominoes are set to fall. 

And all of them deserving of such a fate, given the chasmic scope of individuals and institutions that utterly failed to protect Kyle Beach — or even more dishearteningly, simply looked the other way in pursuit of a few scribbles on a trophy, rather than prioritize the health and safety of a 20-year-old kid.

Yeah, there’s been change. Sure, I guess. But the stain of this scandal will be hard to wash away — and the damage already done. 

A few execs getting kicked to the curb won’t atone for the 11 years of anguish that Beach has toiled in after former Blackhawks video coach Brad Aldrich sexually assaulted him during Chicago's 2010 Cup run, per the lawsuit he filed against his former club back in May. 

Eventually, after the Blackhawks' Cup title, Chicago let Aldrich resign from his post, but not before getting his name etched on hockey's greatest prize. 

Aldrich still had his day with the trophy. He made it in all the team photos. And he was still given the freedom to be in the same room as the young player that he tormented just weeks prior.

“It was like his life was the same as the day before,” Beach said on TSN of Aldrich remaining with the Blackhawks for the remainder of that Cup run. “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. It made me feel like I didn’t exist. It made me feel like, that I wasn’t important and…it made me feel like he was in the right and I was wrong."

Beach might find some sliver of solace after courageously coming forward and putting a face to this sordid mishandling by the NHL — but the scars inflicted by Aldrich, the Blackhawks and countless others still remain. 

It was a testament to Beach’s character — as well as a sad stamp on the devastating chain of events brought upon by years of inaction and ignorance — that the now 31-year-old forward expressed guilt that he had not done enough to stop Aldrich after the former video coach later sexually assaulted a 16-year-old high-school player in Michigan back in 2013. 

The type of guilt that clearly didn't cross the conscience of those that failed Beach so many years ago.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do more, when I could, to make sure it didn’t happen to him," Beach said of the high schooler. "To protect him. But I also wanted to say thank you to him. Because when I decided, after a teammate asked me about it when I was playing overseas, and I decided to Google Brad Aldrich’s name and that’s when I found out about the Michigan individual, the Michigan team. And because of what happened to him, it gave me the power and the sense of urgency to take action, to make sure it didn’t happen to anybody else.

“So, I’m sorry, and I thank you. And I hope at some point down the road, if he’s open to it, I would love to meet him. Because unfortunately, we share something in common – it’s going to be a part of us for the rest of our lives.”

Two lives completely devastated — and for the sake of … what, again?

You can hand a ton of fat cats in front offices their pink slips — but no tangible progress can be made to prevent such a tragedy from happening again until the system that failed Beach at every level is broken down and built back up.

Because at no point in the aftermath of Aldrich’s actions did any of the many waves of support supposedly propped up to care for Beach catch him on his devastating descent. 

It was a systemic failure — not just from the Blackhawks' coaches, team staff and management. 

Not just from the league office or the players’ union. 

But also in the locker room.

Despite the severity of the trauma that Beach went through, he received little relief from the supposed brothers that he fought, bled and battled with together on the ice. In his TSN interview, Beach stated his belief that everyone in Chicago’s room knew of Aldrich’s actions. 

But rather than find solace, Beach endured another form of hell — with his own teammates taunting him during subsequent training camps with homophobic slurs and jeers. 

Jonathan Toews, captain of the Blackhawks since 2009, didn’t do much to dispel that narrative of cold-hearted callousness with his comments on Wednesday, most of which focused on Bowman and MacIsaac, rather than the individual whose life was decimated in part by their ignorance. 

 “How the situation went down, what the timeline was, what they knew, I can’t really comment on that,” Toews said. “It’s obviously a tough day, regardless of mistakes that may have been made, for someone like Stan, who has done so much for the Blackhawks — and Al as well — to lose everything they care about and their livelihoods as well. … I don’t understand how that makes it go away, to just delete them from existence and (say), ‘That’s it, we’ll never hear from them again.’

“I have a lot of respect for them as people. They’re good people. When it comes down to how they feel looking back on the situation, that’s not up to me to comment on.”

That lack of accountability and unwillingness to stare at oneself in the mirror and acknowledge the need for change stands as perhaps the most daunting barrier in the way of true progress. 

But such is a hurdle that needs to be cleared. 

“Every culture needs to keep getting better, and hockey’s no different,” Taylor Hall said on Thursday. “This is a game that’s a little bit of a, I guess what you would call an old boys’ club, and there’s definitely some secrecy and things that need to change. Hopefully, they can. You never want to think of an incident like this and the positives coming from it, because it’s been so terrible. But there needs to be changes, and unfortunately people need to be held accountable.”

Beach’s battle is far from over, be it his ongoing lawsuit with the Blackhawks or the continuing storm of emotions he must navigate more than a decade after that horrible evening in 2010.

And even though Beach’s voice was the first one that bravely rung out into the void, he knows he’s far from the only one. 

In a system that regularly prioritizes winning, profits and revenue shares above all else, people in Beach's position will never stand a chance — not without action being taken. 

“The one thing I want to make sure comes from this is change,” Beach said. “I want to make sure in any way possible that this does not happen to somebody else. Because it will happen again, I will not be the only one. Whether it’s in hockey, soccer, any sport, any business, any company, there needs to be a system in place that it gets dealt with.”

And the foundations of that new system can’t be set until everybody — from the front offices down to those sitting in the locker-room stalls — buys in.

OTHER NOTES

Bruins, Panthers honor Jimmy Hayes

Both the Bruins and Panthers honored a lost teammate ahead of puck drop on Saturday night, as both clubs took to the ice during warmups in special sweaters that paid tribute to Dorchester native Jimmy Hayes. 

Hayes — who passed away back in August at just 31 years old — was memorialized by two of the teams he played with during his seven-year NHL career, with the Bruins and Panthers’ warmups etched with “HAYESY” and “BROADWAY” on the back — two nicknames that he went by. 

All of the warmup sweaters worn by the Bruins and Panthers will be available for auction via the Boston Bruins and Florida Panthers’ foundations — with the funds benefitting a charity that will be selected by the Hayes family. 

The Bruins also held a moment of silence for Hayes before honoring the Boston product with a video tribute. 

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It wouldn’t be a Bruins season if we didn’t have to sift our way through the discourse of splitting up Boston’s top triumvirate of Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak — a move that came to fruition during Saturday’s win over the Panthers.

Granted, the decision to break up arguably the top line in hockey does hold some valid points — namely when it comes to spreading the scoring wealth further down the depth chart. 

But so far, Bruce Cassidy has yet to commit to such a move — at least beyond a mid-game retool.

But did he get some inspiration for Saturday's maneuver thanks to this fan down in Carolina? 

An admirable attempt, no doubt.