32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Where Are We Going?

Episode Date: October 30, 2021

That’s the question. Jeff and Elliotte take an in-depth look at the Kyle Beach story and where it might be headed following the findings from the Chicago Blackhawks internal investigation. They address the news of Kevin Cheveldayoff not facing discipline (5:00), Joel Quenneville resigning (11:00), Donald Fehr and the NHLPA (15:45), players from the 2010 Blackhawks roster (20:40), Gary Bettman and the NHL (27:50), and where Chicago as a club goes from here (44:00). Watch the full Sheldon Kennedy interview HERE New Podcast Intro Music by Jane’s Party. Thank you to Zach, Tom, Devon and Jeff for composing this season’s intro music. You can find their full discography here Music Outro: Palace – Trouble in the Water Listen to more tracks by Palace here This podcast is produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman. Audio Credits: Sportsnet. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates

Elliot it's been a difficult week we're going to get to a lot of the Kyle Beach conversation here in a couple of moments but I wanted to start quickly by having a quick discussion on the Jack Eichel situation you're on my radio show this afternoon talking a little bit about the Vegas Golden Knights and the Buffalo Sabres and Jack Eichel where do we sit now as we record this on a Friday evening well I got a call on Friday afternoon saying that the talks between the Sabres and the Golden Knights had cooled. Now, the caveat with that is that things can change with one phone call. And I suspect this isn't the last conversation they had, but I heard that they had cooled

between those two teams. Okay. How much of this is fueled by, I mean, you had the report on Saturday about this perhaps heading towards a grievance, something that nobody really wants, but it's somewhere that it could have ended up. How much of that speed things along do you think this week? I think it's a factor. I wouldn't say it's the factor, but it's a factor. I don't think anybody wants that.

So it's definitely on the radar, but I don't think it's anybody's end goal. Like you said that they've cooled off, but have they gone far enough that grievance is no longer something that the Eichel camp CAA Pat Brisson would be considering? Because now we're a week and I'm not going to marry you to a timeframe because you kind of said a couple of weeks, but is there enough there right now that they far enough down the road, even though things have cooled for camp eichel to say all right let's let's see where this goes here don't know don't know haven't asked that i know that this week the a lot of the focus was on making a deal so i don't know i couldn't answer that and

no names you heard going either way i love to throw them around as you know ever since you irresponsibly threw nick haig out there people are being really careful especially since i think this has been going back and forth for a few days yeah i think they're really sensitive to what names are in there my only point about nick haig was no i think you were irresponsible no if pey Krebs is no fly zone for this one if I'm the Buffalo Sabres I look at Nick Hague all day long that was my only point about putting Nick Hague's name out there if you wanted to put that out as irresponsible then that's fine you're within your rights to do that and with that we'll kick off the podcast. Welcome to 32 Thoughts, brought to you by the first ever GMC AT4 lineup. Welcome once again to the podcast.

Thanks for putting up with us being a day late on delivering it to you. As you listen to this pod, some of the Cal Beach story has been told, but not all of it. Elliot, we expect this to be just the beginning. You referenced tip of the iceberg not too long ago. Where this all ends up, we don't know. We know some of what happened. We know Cal's name name now we know that stan bowman al mckay isaac are out joel quenville is no longer the head coach of the florida panthers

kevin cheville they offer mains winnipeg jets general manager before we start to drill down a couple of the issues involved here um give us a snapshot of this week in your words what just happened i don't think a snapshot i don't think you can give a snapshot uh this has been an enormous story you know we're in year eight of the rights package i don't think we'll get a bigger story in 12 years and it's tarnished a championship run like the dynasty of the last decade it's got everybody in the sport scrambling. I think that's the best way to put it. It's got everybody in the sport scrambling. We don't even know what the full consequences are or what the full outcome is going to be. I think we'll see the commissioner speak next week.

I believe you're going to see Kevin Sheveldayoff and Mark Chipman, the owner of the Jets, speak next week, but after the commissioner. To this point, the NHLPA executive director, Donald Feer, has turned down interviews. I think at some point he's going to have to speak too. I don't know where this is going to go. And I think we all wonder, you know, what else is going to come out of this? Who is going to see what Kyle Beach did and say, I'm going to come forward too. So there's a lot to unpack here. And I don't think we're going to be finished with this for some time. Okay.

So Elliot, as everybody sort of looks for some solid footing to get a handle on this story right now and speculate on where this is heading. Let me ask you this question. What do we know? And I know there's a lot of directions that this information can take us, but where is this all heading right now? Boy, like your snapshot question, there's a lot of different places.

Okay, well, let's start with Kevin Sheveldale because I think that's probably the most surprising development. If you looked at that meeting, the first one that happened after they knocked out the San Jose Sharks in the 2010 Western quarterfinal, or the Western final, excuse me. is out. Jay Blunk, who was in that meeting, is out. Al McIsaac is out. Stan Bowman is out. Joel Quenville is out. Everybody in that meeting is gone. And the only person in that meeting who is standing is Kevin Sheveldayoff. And I think when he went to New York on Friday to meet with the league, I think we all expected that he was going to be out too. And instead we got the exact reverse. And that is that he was cleared of any further discipline or of any discipline really.

And, you know, there's a lot of things about the Sheveldayoff situation that are unanswered. And I want to hear what he has to say. You know, the one thing is the Winnipeg Jets have been very loyal to their hockey operations staff. They don't make a lot of changes since they got from Atlanta. They've changed the head coach once and Kevin Sheveldayoff has been the GM for the full term. The owner there, Mark Chipman, is very loyal to them. And I heard that Chipman really backed Sheveldayoff during this process privately. Like he was steadfast in the corner from what we knew. I personally am still really annoyed at the July statement from the Jets and Sheveldayoff.

I will confess a really good lawyer wrote it if you read it and read what we now know about shovel day off being in that room and when he learned about what happened to kyle beach the report makes legal sense it passes muster legally, but it is as misleading as you can get. You had no reason to believe that he was in the room based on that statement. And yeah, I guess they had to do what they had to do from a legal position. They misled you as much as they possibly could. That's a fact. And it really bothers me how that happened the statement they released on

friday after the commissioner's announcement i mean it's so bland i wouldn't even tweet it like normally i think you have a responsibility to tweet things because they're news but it was just so bland and so nothing i was like i can't even justify the rationale to tweet that. So I really want to hear what gets said here about Sheveldayoff. I'd like to know what is different between him and everyone else. And I don't think the original comment that he's not a member of senior leadership is really going to fly. You know what I'd like to know, Jeff? senior leadership is really going to fly.

You know what I'd like to know, Jeff? It's very clear if you read the report that the recollections of what happened in that meeting are very different. Wildly different from person to person. Wildly different. Yes, yes. And I have a couple of things that I'm kind of wondering here. We knew that there was a meeting between all these people, but until the report came down, we didn't know Sheveldayoff was in it.

Like I spoke to Paul Vincent. He didn't say that Sheveldayoff was in it. I spoke to a couple other people. They didn't say that Sheveldayoff was in it. So I'm really confused by all this. And what I would like to see happen is I would like to see if we could have a situation where we could find out what everybody remembered about that specific meeting.

Because I think that we would have a better understanding of what was said and what everybody recalled based on those conversations. Because I think what we have here, and some of it, it might be very selective on some of the people's parts, but I think other parts of it is just general forgetting things, memories. I think people remember different things about what they were told, who said what at certain points, and who ultimately decided what action, what was or was not going to be taken like it's pretty clear here that quenville and bowman by their statements they feel mcdonough made the call and i would love to hear what everybody has to say i really would because i

bet you that you'll have people saying i I was given this information and other people saying, I think we were told this. And that's why I think that all of these paths were so different. I also suspect that Sheveldayoff really cooperated with the investigation. And I wonder if that helped them in any way, shape or form here too. But I want to hear it because it doesn't make any sense right now. Let me circle back and I want you to tell me whether you think I'm being naive about something or overly simplistic about something. Okay. So in the release about Kevin Sheveldayoff, Gary Bettman says this, quote, Kevin Sheveldayoff was not a member of the Blackhawks senior leadership team in 2010,

and I cannot therefore assign to him responsibility for the club's actions or inactions. Do we interpret from this that the NHL is only interested in punishing people who they feel had a responsibility to report, i.e. senior leadership, and that's it? I think that's it? I think that's a really good question. The answer to that could definitely be yes.

I don't know if that's going to satisfy people. I strongly suspect it won't. But based on what we all know here, I suspect the answer is yes. To Joel Quenville, I would still like to know know and i'm sure you would as well in our listeners why he was allowed to coach that game against the boston brown i have no idea that'll be a betman question when he talks you know we talked about it on thursday on uh on the show um on your jeff merrick with jeff merrick show and i told you and you didn't like the answer that an hr lawyer buddy of mine told me that uh they felt it was a legal issue that you couldn't do it until he was punished which i don't like the answer to that i think it's kind of a lame answer

but look like i freely admit i don't like shovel day off statement but a lawyer brilliantly wrote that the one on july 27th so lawyers make the call and you know i think in this case that that was a legal call look terrible yeah in retrospect it looks even worse but i think that was a legal call as you mentioned earlier, Stan Bowman, Joel Quenville, fingers pointed at John McDonough, the person who's no longer with the Hawks. And it wasn't with the Hawks when this report came out. I don't know that we ever hear from John McDonough on this.

Well, I don't think you'll hear from John McDonough on this for now because one of the things I'm hearing is that the Blackhawks are mulling a lawsuit against him. And look, one of the biggest surprises about Chicago winning those Stanley Cups when they did was that it wasn't harmonious in the organization. Between the coaches, the front office, John McDonough and all their various liaisons, there was a real mistrust there. People accused each other of being spies for certain people. Jobs were changed because people wanted their own people in there. You know, there was a lot of this coach is aligned with this guy or this person in the front office is aligned with this guy and nobody really trusted anybody else. It was like office politics gone haywire on a three-time

Stanley Cup champion team. It's really quite amazing when you think about it. And I think at the end here, those office politics spilled into what came out of this investigation. politics spilled into what came out of this investigation. And if you look at Bowman's statement, he makes it very quite clear who he blames. And if you look at Quenville's statement, he makes it very clear who he blames. And Brent Sopel, his word to me, I trust totally. Brent Sopel, his word to me, I trust totally. He released a statement today on his Twitter where he said that he believes the Wurtzes did not know. And that's for him, considering everything he said so far, and he's one of those people who disputes that not everyone knew.

He says everyone knew. For him to say that the Wurtzes didn't know is a big victory for them and you put all of this information together and you extrapolate from it look i'm not saying anything with any certainty but as we tape this on friday night at 8 57 p.m eastern it looks like it looks like it ends at mcdonough's feet and i think one of the things that people are wondering is are the blackhawks going to go after mcdonough's severance package and are they also going to go after his salary that he collected from 2010 until he was out so that's a decade and if he's worried about that you're not going to hear from him until it's over. You see, that would indicate to me, again, no legal background here.

This is just how I would see it if the Blackhawks went after John McDonough. Mm-hmm. went after John McDonough. That would indicate to me that it did end at the feet of the former CEO and didn't go to Rocky Wurtz because would there not be the fear that if you're the Wurtz family, John McDonough says, I had reporting obligation to Rocky Wurtz and I reported. Of course. Absolutely.

I think you would think that. You know, the other thing too is we also know at some point that John McDonough did go to HR. Yes. You know, where did that go? Let me ask you about a couple of other areas of this here that are troubling and demand some answers here. The NHL Players Association and Donald Feer. Yeah. this here that are troubling and demand some answers here uh the nhl players association and

donald fear yeah like i know that this looks like a game of hot potato where everyone is passing blame oh i handed it off over here i handed you know this potato over there i handed this bit of information over there 100 like that's what it is and of course the irony of all of this which has been pointed out by countless people, and I think it is very appropriate to mention here on this podcast, Elliot, this is a sport where people continually talk about being accountable. And in this situation, nobody wanted to make themselves accountable. No one said, it stopped with me, or no one said, it stopped with me or no one said it stops with me. This is all

pointing fingers and blame goes elsewhere. What does the PA and Donald Lefevre, what did they have to answer to here? First of all, Ross Gurney, who's the agent at the time for Kyle Beach, who's the agent at the time for Kyle Beach has gone on record to say that he reached out to the players association about Brad Aldrich working for USA hockey after he was out with the Blackhawks and doesn't exactly sound like the Players Association. I know Beach has come right out and said he doesn't believe the Players Association did anything about it. The best thing I can weigh is I can explain

is what I think has happened here. What I can say for sure is that Fear got the tip and he reached out to one of the doctors, Dr. Shah. And there was definitely a conversation between Dr. Shah and Beach and it didn't go anywhere. It didn't go anywhere. And one of the things that is difficult, and if you're a doctor or you're a psychiatrist or a psychologist is confidentiality between doctor and patient but there are times and i confess i don't know all of the answers to this but i know there are situations where a doctor can breach confidentiality, for example, if they think that someone can get harmed. Self-harm or harm to others.

There's exceptions. And in this particular situation, the Players Association is claiming it was not reported back up, and it should have been. And I do think that one thing you'll see the PA do is make clearer guidelines for when things need to be reported. Here's where the problem is. I think people understanding sort of the politics of the Players Association and many offices like that, they find it very hard to believe that only two people in the NHLPA had this conversation.

They believe other people had to know. And just with the whole situation, they find it hard to believe that something of this magnitude didn't go farther than that. I only judge others like I judge myself. And I'm trying to imagine if I was in that kind of a leadership situation, I would probably go to a couple people who I can sit with. Assuming I had permission to, I would probably go to a couple of senior people and just say, what should we do here? Or what's your advice here? that's what i would say and i i find it hard to believe that that wouldn't happen i really do so then i'll ask perhaps the most obvious question coming off that we've seen a lot of executive directors of the players association leave and

under different circumstances and for different reasons do you think that there's enough here to spell the demise of donald fear i think it's possible i don't like to say anything with certainty because this changes so quickly you know one of the things i've learned in life jeff is that especially with stories like this one you think that the apex is here or the denouement is here and then something else happens something else that moves along something else makes you say oh my goodness i can't believe it and it continues so i think right now when i look at this i think he's definitely in trouble but it's always possible more could come but i definitely think he's in trouble. Yes.

What are your thoughts on the Chicago Blackhawks players from 2010, specifically the ones that are still playing in the NHL right now? Duncan Keith made some comments saying that he had no idea about any of this. Patrick Kane made comments amongst them saying he didn't know that John Doe was Kyle Beach. Jonathan Taves commented as well and spoke positively about Stan Bowman and Al McIsaac. What do you think of the players in this one and and where they sit now there is a complete disconnect between what players outside of the NHL now who used to be on that Blackhawks team say and what players still in the NHL say about what they knew at that time well I think it's kind of obvious

that they all knew. The question is when. Like at the latest to me, and this is just me looking at it, is the latest to me that anyone can say they didn't know was training camp the next season. And Jonathan Taves maintained that he found out about it at training camp the following season.

Well, that's the latest. I'm just saying like in the playoffs, I could buy that some players didn't know. I could buy that. But I can't buy from what I've heard in this situation that everyone didn't know by the 2010 training camp or the end of training camp. 2011 training. Sorry, 2011 training camp. This part of the story, Jeff, is not going away

until we know who made the slurs. People are going to chase that. Oh, the taunting of Kyle Beach? Yeah. Yeah. Like I've looked into it and people know, because I got a couple of calls about it,

people are looking. And like, I don't think this part of the story is over yet. Do you have a thought on Duncan Keith declining to be interviewed? I wish everybody participated. It's like working on a big, deep, in-depth story, right? When you do a big interview for a story, there's very few stories you're going to do where you're going to talk to 100 people, right? But let's just say you talk to 20 people for a story.

How many of those interviews are you going to get at least one fact from? Probably 20, going to get at least one fact from probably 20 definitely 19 yeah so what i don't like about it is keith may say he has nothing to add but it doesn't mean that you don't get something and you know unfortunately for keith what that does now that it's out is people focusing on him. Sometimes this makes me crazy because he could legitimately have nothing to say. Let's take him at his face value for a second, but it just looks guilty. Here's what I would say to that, Ellie. Even if in your mind you don't have anything to say or no information to offer, the fact that you sit down for the interview, even if you don't know anything, you could put

yourself in a situation where you could possibly corroborate someone else who's saying the exact same thing and that has value. That's why to your point, I think it would have been valuable for Duncan Keith to sit down and have that interview. All I can say is if it was me, Jeff, unless I had an incredibly guilty conscience, if the Chicago Blackhawks called me and said, we need you to come do this, I would have done it. I'm a big believer in innocent until proven guilty. I think it is fundamental and very important. I just think that the way that this is going, where more and more things are coming out on a daily basis, people are going to give you much less of the presumption of innocence if you don't participate, or we find out that you didn't

participate. And I wonder at some point in time, Jeff, if we find out down the road that maybe the difference between being punished and not punished is how much you were willing to participate. It's kind of like a criminal investigation. It's like law and order, right? We'll give you plea bargain if you cooperate. And I do wonder here if that is a factor at all so then do you think that we're at a point where all the players from that 2010 stanley cup winning chicago blackhawks team need to go on record until they're the answer

to that mystery is revealed there's going to be a cloud of suspicion there. You know, one of the things I said while all this was going on was, this story is not going away, right? This isn't going away. And the person who told me that and was steadfast about it, they turned out to be right. And I think this is the same thing. I don't think this is going away.

People are aggressively chasing it now. So I've thought a lot about what I would do if I was a Chicago Blackhawks player right now, still in the game. And perhaps I'm maintaining I didn't know anything or we didn't know anything. We didn't discuss it in the dressing room. I don't know who did the taunting.

Players are saying that now. The ones that are still in the game. My concern would be, this is like prisoner's dilemma game theory. My concern would be what happens if someone comes out one of those players and says you know what i can't do this i need to be honest we knew what then i mean jeff like at this point in time would it surprise you if that happens it wouldn't surprise me at all as a matter of fact i'm kind of expecting it to happen to be honest with you where one person breaks from the crowd and says, I can't do this. This is what happened. We knew, we discussed it on the bench,

on the ice, in the room, at the restaurant. We knew, we all did. Well, if you look at the testimony or you read the report, both Sopal and Boynton have said publicly that they believed everyone knew. Everyone knew. But the report says they did not provide specifics. Now, I don't know what that means. I'm sure it means they didn't name names. Just a generic everybody knew, everybody knew. Yes, yes. So we're pretty close to there already.

We're not far from that. Do you think that we ever, because we know one and it's duncan keith so we'll take the number 37 and make it 36 now do you think that we ever find out the 36 that either didn't respond or refuse to cooperate i just think over the years through attrition that will get figured out okay elliot we've talked about a lot of things here. The Blackhawks, the players, the PA. What about the NHL through all of this? It's sort of like we're figuring this out here.

We're figuring that out here. We've kind of moved to the NHL PA here. And now when do we get to the NHL? You know, there's a couple of things here I think at some point in time the commissioner is going to have to say when the league knew we're all going to have to know that I'd also like to know if anyone from the NHL the commissioner the deputy commissioner anybody else participated in the investigation was interviewed. I'd like to know that too. You know, we talked about the Sobel statement from before. Like I said, it helps the Wurtzes.

It probably helps the league. But again, you know, the story changes so much. I don't want to commit to anything 100%. But I think the NHL has to come out and say, this is the date we found out. And these are the circumstances. The other thing I think the NHL has to come out and say, this is the date we found out. And this, these are the circumstances. The other thing I think the NHL has to do is I think there were some very unhappy sponsors and are some very unhappy sponsors. And I think you,

you know, the sponsors make your world go around, right? You know, I think they're going to listen to them. You know, they sent out a memo saying, you know,

these are the reminders about what your duty to report is. And I think we should know what the penalties are. And I think the penalties have to be set higher. One of the things that everybody really noticed about this, because I've talked about it, and I've mentioned this a few times. So Jeff, if we go into a meeting at Sportsnet and our boss of hockey, Rob Cortay is in there.

And Rob Cortay comes up with a plan of action that we don't like. And it turns out to be a plan of action that really has consequences. Are you and I senior enough that we should have stopped it or said something about it? Do you know how many people I know inside and outside of hockey are asking themselves that question after this week? And I think that's a good thing because what that encourages is it encourages people to stand

up for what they believe in, especially if they believe a course of action is wrong. I think if there's anything that is good that comes out here from the NHL's handling of this is that we're all going to look at it as, do I have a duty now? Like maybe in the past, I was like, oh, you know what? I don't have the power to battle that person. Or you know what? I know I'm going to have to battle that person on issue X. You know, I'll concede to them on issue Y. That's not good enough anymore. And I think that's a good thing. But the $2 million fine wasn't enough. We have to know what the minimum fine is, and it's got to be a big number.

And the second thing is, I think there should be a draft pick penalty or something like that attached to this. Well, hang on. Let's pause on that for one second, because I know that was really distasteful to a lot of people, distasteful to yourself and myself included. And I thought the penalty should have been a lot stiffer.

We all do. Does the NHL have the ability to go back now and redo that punishment? I haven't even considered that. My initial answer would be no. I don't think you can do things like that. I think once you give a penalty, it's like double jeopardy, right? You can't penalize somebody twice. I get it, but we hear a lot about the good of the game.

And right now that- It's a good, my initial answer to that would be no, but I understand why you're asking it. Because one of the things here that both the Blackhawks need to do, the NHL needs to do, and you mentioned sponsors and as well fans, to say nothing of players who Kyle Beach was not protected here in any way, shape, or form. As everyone just pointed fingers at everybody else and said, I'm not responsible, you're responsible. No, I'm not responsible, you're responsible.

One of the big things that everybody needs to do here is rebuild trust. Yep. At every single level. And right now, if you're a, you're a Blackhawks fan, how are you feeling right now? Your trust has been shattered. Yep. Even if you're not a Blackhawks fan. I mean, how many, how many times did you have someone say to you this week

or read on social media, why do I love this game that doesn't love me back? That keeps doing this. That keeps breaking my heart. Why do I keep doing this to myself? There's a trust at every single level that needs to be rebuilt here. And that $2 million fine went nowhere in rebuilding trust. You know, the other thing that really bothered me this week

was seeing Sheldon Kennedy and thinking, and Theo Fleury, but Sheldon Kennedy was on our air and thinking that they were the last guys that this was supposed to happen to. Like I wasn't in the position I'm in now when their story broke. I was very young into my career. So it didn't affect me as much as this one has in terms of as a reporter and as a company and what we failed to do as an organization

with myself as a face of that. It was very different for me back then, but it was very tough for me to watch Kennedy on our air and see Theo Fleury's tweets and know that they're like, this was supposed to stop. I think Sheldon Kennedy deserves a lot of credit for willing to be someone who's willing to jump back in and say what we need to do and be as gracious as he is. Because I think if it was me, I'd be destroying people.

I watched that Sheldon Kennedy interview with Carolyn Cameron, and I came away with a pretty much identical feeling, an identical conclusion. away with a pretty much identical feeling and identical conclusion. I can't believe that this guy is still as optimistic as he is. Sheldon, what was your reaction watching and hearing those words? Well, I just got some chills. I had not seen that before. And, you know, I just really want to say to you, Kyle, if you are listening, thank you. Thank you for your voice. You will never know how many people you're going to help by allowing, you know, your face and your name to be in the public eye. So I just really want to say thank you. And you know, what I know is the impact is real. That's what I know.

And I remember I kept second guessing myself about why I felt the way I felt when I disclosed. And I think what I've come to learn is that the impact is real and the way I felt was normal for what happened to me. So thank you, Kyle. Kyle Beach this evening in that interview with TSN, he said one of the reasons he was speaking out was because he knows that he's a survivor and there have to be more out there. And he wants to make sure that the same thing that happened to him doesn't happen to others. He also added that he wants to see more accountability. For this case that we see in the NHL in hockey,

what's the next step look like to you? Well, I mean, the next, this is about leadership. I mean, lock, stop and barrel, these issues are about leadership. And when we want real change, real change happens within organizations, it starts at the top. And when we want real change, real change happens within organizations, it starts at the top. And policies and procedures just don't cut it anymore. I mean, you know, they had their policies and procedures from what I read in the in the report, they were, they said that they were supposed to take prompt action. But obviously, that didn't happen. So to me, I think, you know, with Kyle's brave voice, I think that there needs to be a real clear knowledge on how to get better. We need to get to the bottom line, to the bottom and base truth of this.

Like, until we get to the truth and the real truth we can't start being better and i think that the league needs to learn and and uh uh and and be able to uh make sure that they've created the infrastructure within every organization to not only uh educate every single person within that organization, but they also have to have a clear pathway for those to be able to receive help and to be able to have a clear action plan for when that disclosure comes forward. I mean, 10 years, and we look at the response, initial response, and then even the response from last summer um very disappointing but i look at these situations and these as a as a good teachable let's learn from this let's be better let's make

sure that not this does not happen to anybody else how many people have in hockey specifically have let him down yeah and it happens over and over again and after graham james we said this can't happen again and after listen i mean you and i both grew up in toronto i know the gordon stucco story very well did we say this can't happen again. Yeah. And here we are again. Yeah. And to me, Sheldon Kennedy on Wednesday was remarkable. I can't believe how, after everything that he's been through personally, how he's still, to your point, ready to get back into the ring again. It's like, okay, it hasn't worked.

We still need to do more. I'm here. Like, I think a lot of people, and maybe myself included, would have said like, you guys messed up. Everyone's messed up here. I can't keep doing this. Good on Sheldon Kennedy.

He keeps being, he keeps making himself available. That was a remarkable piece with Carolyn. A couple of other things I'd like to say here. After we release this podcast on Saturday, Kyle Beach is going to have interviews with both Donald Fear and the commissioner. I assume both are going to apologize to him in person or at least over camera.

You know what I hope? I hope the NHL says to him, you know, whenever you're done and players want to play as long as they can, I totally get that. or at least over camera. You know what I hope? I hope the NHL says to him, you know, whenever you're done and players want to play as long as they can, I totally get that. Whenever you're done, there's going to be a role for you here. And we'll talk about what that role is

and what it's going to mean and how it's going to work. But there's going to be a role for you here if you want it and what that role could be and the other thing too is i'm kind of wondering i think a lot of people didn't believe what the investigation was going to be or lead to and reid sharr who led it he did a hell of a job and i'm kind of wondering if this is the person who should sort of be on retainer for all these investigations in the future.

And God hope we don't need another one of these ever again. But maybe he's the person. He uncovered more here than a lot of people were expecting. That's true. I'm glad they were as transparent as they were about it. I think we'd still like to know things like, you know, was the commissioner interviewed?

When Bettman has his availability, you know, we're going to, I think we're going to learn the answer to that. Someone's going to ask it to him directly. I don't know how he could not answer. one thing is as you mentioned the uh the cowl beach meeting with uh with the nhl commissioner and you know our fingers crossed that gary betman says something to the effect of when your playing career is done let's find a place for you here in the nhl there's still a legal fight here going on yeah like the blackhawks have said

they would like to find a settlement but this is still a legal battle and beach in his statement on twitter made it clear like the blackhawks said their motion to dismiss was procedural and they made it sound hey we're going to make settlement, but we have to do this as a procedure. And Beach made it very clear, you know, with his public tweet that he's not good with that. That it's still a fight. Yes. What it says to me, and I think he's earned

the right, is he wants the right to end this on his terms. Is anyone going to argue with that? No. And by the same time i can still see that part of it getting ugly can't you it's up to him it's up to you know what what he feels like i don't know i'll throw a wild number out there although maybe it's not wild i don't know like what happens if kyle beach says to chicago blackhawks i want 50 million dollars i don't like I don't

know I personally don't like talking these things about these things as much because you know for me the primary concern is you know that he's happy in life as opposed to the number but you know I think it's fair to point out that one of the conversations I was having about this was exactly what you're talking about. You know, here's a player that had just finished their junior career in their final season of junior had scored 52 goals. He played all of eight games in the American hockey league in the regular season and the playoffs. He had three goals in four playoff games and he got a call up to the black aces in the stanley cup playoffs like there's not a lot of players who had 11 games of pro hockey experience at that time because he played the year before and he was 20 years old

who would get that opportunity so he's a first round draft pick. He's obviously very talented. Someone said to me, it's a big number. And we can all argue about what that number is, but it's a big number. That's one thing too, for those that don't know Kyle Beach, because I remember him playing a ton and he was poised to become a great power forward in the game. He was a skilled player. He was awful to play against. Like he was hard to like people hated playing against Kyle Beach. He was skilled. He was tough. There's a reason he was a top 10 draft pick in the NHL.

reason he was a top 10 draft pick in the nhl he had a dangerous streak to him as well that's really attractive to teams like this guy a lot of people looked at this this kid playing for the silver tips and said oof if we can get this guy in our program and get him get him focused here this guy's going to be a real player for our team for a long time. Like he had a really unique skill set, Elliot. Really, I know Hockey Canada always shied away concerns about, you know, penalties at world junior tournaments, and that could end the tournament right there. But this guy was skilled.

This guy was strong. This guy was tough. This guy was fearless. I would argue he's still fearless. I was going to say, but nothing was tougher than what we saw this week in that interview on TSN. A couple of things about the Chicago Blackhawks. Next,

Kyle Davidson is the interim general manager as we record this. Where do you think that heads now? I think they're going to try to hire two people. One person who's going to run the hockey ops and one person who's going to do what you talked about before, which is rebuild the trust. I know there's a lot of talk about Ed Olchek. It makes an awful lot of sense to me. I don't have any intel that it's going to happen, but it makes an awful lot of sense to me. I don't have any intel that it's going to happen, but it makes an awful lot of sense to me. He's very popular in the market to sort of be that bridge and that trust builder.

And a couple of people were telling me, one of the reasons they see Jeff Gordon is that he did this before in New York with John Davidson, where John Davidson was kind of the face and he was just left alone to do the hockey. And if that's the kind of combination you're looking at here, Gorton has proven that he can do that. And the other thing too is, I think the Blackhawks are going to have some... Duncan Keith is gone now. And I think you wonder, does it ever come to a situation where they have to trade a legend or they walk away from a legend? He did that in New York city with Lundquist. And he also made a lot of really good moves. I mean,

they got some lottery luck, but he made a lot of good moves that that New York Ranger rebuild ended faster than we thought. And one of the major reasons was they got Panarin. But another major reason was they drafted and developed really well and made good decisions. Some people ripped Jeff Gorton because he traded for Fox when everyone knew Fox wanted to go there.

Well, he got Fox into the NHL faster because he made the trade. Like he made a lot of good decisions. Pause one second. One more thing on Gordon. He just didn't do it with the Rangers. Bruins, you're right. Look at that Bruins team.

That has Jeff Gordon fingerprints on it all over the place. It's not just the Rangers. It's the Bruins too. Obviously Rutherford's a name that comes up a lot. I don't know if he wants to be the day-to-day gm so it might be hard it might you know since he's not the guy who i don't know if you're thinking about him to rebuild the market someone suggested to me peter shirelli and i had someone

else who suggested to me gar snow i was just talking about him with rick di pietro the other day on the radio show it's interesting you should should mention Garcino's name. So those are all kinds of names I've heard, but I think you want your hockey person to solely focus on hockey and you want your face of the franchise to be someone who can rebuild the trust. Before I wrap up the podcast, Elliot, anything you'd like to add about the week that we've just seen? Like we know that we're heading into more stories this weekend, next week,

subsequent weeks, months, et cetera. Anything you'd like to add from the week that just was? I mean, I hope we never have to go through it again for obvious reasons that nobody gets hurt like that again. There's always going to be bad things that happen in the world.

This is a situation where people could have changed the outcome sooner. And, you know, John Tortorella had the, like, what if it was your kid? I always think about that. Same. Like, I always think about that. Same. Like I always think about that.

And I look at, you know, the actions of other people and how would this affect someone I know or how would this affect someone I care about? I can't believe how this got handled at the highest level. And, um, I, that's why when we go back and i do think the best thing that could come out of this is the realization that in a lot of cases here well this person was the boss is no longer an acceptable excuse i'd like to add before we sign off, we applaud and respect Kyle Beach. And this story is not over for any of us and certainly him. But we've seen hockey players judged a lot of ways.

And one of the biggest compliments you can pay a hockey player is calling him or her brave. And the bravery that Kyle Beach showed this week knows no bounds and has earned respect from hockey corners everywhere and to any organization that places a value on winning over humanity, on winning over keeping your soul intact, on winning over protecting young people in your organization. I think of the quote from Tayson Deshumaru, if you say I must win, then you cannot win. Thanks for joining us on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. Since the sadness has spoken I've been praying for a vision And pleading for silence

They've thrown it to the ocean And turned into their shadows It's a swarm like a motion And it's clear to me Clear to me That there is trouble On the water A bleakness

In the waves A sad heart inside this real cage Whispers both their names