Front Burner - Kyle Beach and the NHL's sex assault scandal

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

The fallout and the calls for accountability continue in the NHL's Chicago sexual assault scandal. Lawyer and abuse survivor Greg Gilhooly on how the league needs to change so its players are protected.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Angela Starrett in for Jamie Poisson. The Chicago Blackhawks long doubt is over. In June of 2010, the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, beating the Philadelphia Flyers in overtime in Game 6. It was a big moment for the franchise,

the first time they'd won the championship since 1961. And on the ice, celebrating with the rest of the team, was video coach Brad Aldrich. celebrating with the rest of the team was video coach Brad Aldrich. It's a moment that runs in stark contrast to events that allegedly occurred just one month before. I think the only way I can describe it is that I felt sick. I felt sick to my stomach. I reported this and I was made aware that it made it all the way up the chain of command. And then when they won, to see him paraded around, lifting the cup at the parade,

at the team pictures, at the celebrations, it made me feel like nothing. It made me feel like I didn't exist. That's the voice of Vancouver-born Kyle Beach, once a first-round draft pick with a bright future ahead of him in the NHL. Beach came forward last week as John Doe, the unnamed plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Chicago Blackhawks filed earlier this year. The suit alleges in May 2010, while he was called up from the minor leagues for the playoffs, Beach was sexually assaulted by Aldrich.

The suit also alleges that after reporting it all the way up the chain, the franchise was slow to act, and Aldrich stayed in his role for weeks until resigning without consequence. As part of this process, the Blackhawks hired a law firm to do an independent investigation. And just last week, the firm released a damning report. It showed how the Blackhawks failed Kyle Beach

and others impacted by Aldrich's behavior. Today on FrontBurner, we're speaking with lawyer, former hockey player, and sexual assault survivor Greg Gilhooly about this case and the ripple effect it's having throughout the hockey world. Hi, Greg. Hi. Thanks so much for being here with us. And we just heard from Kyle Beach, who spoke to TSN's Rick Westhead, that's the reporter who broke this story, about what he went through 11 years ago.

It's a 25-minute long, very raw, very emotional conversation. I want to get your thoughts on it. But first, I want to play you another clip from the interview. To be honest, I was scared, mostly. I was fearful. I had had my career threatened. I felt alone and dark, and I didn't know what to do. As a 20-year-old, I would never dream or you could never imagine being put in this situation by somebody that's supposed to be there to help you and to make you a better hockey player and a better person and continue to build your career. So, like I said, a really emotional, emotional clip. What went through your mind when you heard what Kyle Beach had to say there?

Well, it's absolutely gut-wrenching. I mean, I am looking back through a lens into a mirror at myself when I see Kyle, and the pain just drips from him, right? The problem with sexual assault is that there's the physical act in the instant, and then there's the lingering carnage. And I think that's what many may fail to appreciate is Kyle has clearly been left over a decade later with such pain that it just rips you to the core. Yeah, that's kind of what struck me as well. Like this is so many years later and just imagining the things that he buried and that he had to, you know,

just go in every day and put his armor on and pretend like this didn't happen. I suppressed this memory and buried this memory to chase my dreams and pursue the career that I loved and the game that I love of hockey. But until very recently, I did not talk about it. I did not discuss it. I didn't think about it. I want to shed light on this investigation outlined in the report that came out last week

by the law firm Jenner & Block. Can you walk me through what happened in May 2010? Yeah. And again, as a first comment, let's remember that this law firm was hired by the team, the Chicago Blackhawks. This is not in any way an independent investigation. The team and the league like to refer to their report as independent, but it was very much a captive report. And the firm had no power of subpoena, no power to compel witnesses, no power to their first Stanley Cup in decades, that Kyle, he was back then anonymous, obviously, but Kyle came forward with an allegation that he had been abused by one of the team's video coaches. And nothing really happened. The complaint made its way up to senior management. Senior management met. The most senior people in

the Blackhawks hockey organization said that they were going to deal with it, and nothing happened. The coach in that meeting was adamant that nothing be done to disrupt the team's pursuit for the Stanley Cup. And that was the problem. And that was the mistake. After the team won the Stanley Cup, the video coach was allowed to move on and the Blackhawks effectively washed their hands of this abuser. So as you mentioned, a meeting with senior management was held on May 23rd. It was in the midst of this major playoff run. Who were the key players at that meeting and what came of it? The most senior management in the Chicago Blackhawks were present.

You had the head of hockey operations, the president of the Chicago Blackhawks were present. You had the head of hockey operations, the president of the Chicago Blackhawks, and then the names that hockey people out there will recognize. You had the general manager, Stan Bowman, son of Scott Bowman, who had led the Montreal Canadiens in the 70s, and Joel Quenville, the coach. And Joel Quenville appears to have been the driving force in that meeting advocating that nothing be done during the team's run for the stanley cup the coach closest to the players

is most sensitive to the the results on the ice and the impact that anything may have on the players and what quenville is reported to have said during that meeting is that nothing should interfere with the team in its pursuit of the Stanley Cup. The Blackhawks hadn't won in decades, and they were clearly on a roll and had a very good chance of winning and ultimately did win. Quinville had earlier denied he was aware of the sexual assault, but yesterday after a meeting with the NHL commissioner and the Panthers organization, he was urged to resign. Chicago Blackhawks team president Danny Wurtz and his father, team owner Rocky Wurtz, announcing the resignation of the team's president of hockey operations, Stan Bowman. I also want to share that Stan Bowman has stepped aside. Stan Bowman was the general manager.

His assistant general manager, Kevin Sheveldayoff, now the general manager of the winnipeg jets was also in that meeting you couldn't get any more senior in the chicago blackhawks than the group in in that meeting it is somewhat cloudy about what was conveyed during that meeting other than something clearly had gone wrong and then we jumped to the end of the playoffs and the video coach celebrating with the Stanley Cup, getting the Stanley Cup for a day. He's in the team pictures. He hoists the cup. Imagine having been offended by that guy, having gone up the proper chain within the organization and reporting it and seeing the offender, your abuser, hoisting the Stanley Cup. It's incredible. And so to reiterate, the Blackhawks were aware of the assault allegation and did not take

aggressive action. What did you think when you heard that the Chicago Blackhawks did not launch an investigation into Aldrich when this all went down in May 2010 and instead they let him just simply resign? Well, I think we have to be a bit careful in using what we know here in 2021 and applying it back to what was going on in 2010 because we've got the benefit of 11 years we now know that aldrich went on and was convicted of sexual abuse in a subsequent posting so we know for sure that he's a bad guy and the other unfortunate thing is that as we sit here today on the basis of the limited report that the law firm retained by the team provide the report released we don't really know in detail what the executives within that room knew at the

time we know that they knew something wrong had happened but we don't have specific word by word reporting that doesn't give anyone a get out of jail free card because whatever they knew they knew it was bad enough that the moment the stanley cup was won they had to get rid of jail free card. Because whatever they knew, they knew it was bad enough that the moment the Stanley Cup was won, they had to get rid of this guy. So it was a career-ending move within the Blackhawks organization, whatever it happened. And do the Blackhawks dispute

any of the events of 2010 today? Well, it's interesting, right? Because this all comes up in litigation. And it's not until the report comes out that the team has paid for that all of a sudden people are thinking that something might be wrong. gave the league a heads up in December 2020 that there might be something to it, that the league asked questions of the Blackhawks, and that the Blackhawks legal counsel said there was nothing to it. If there was nothing to it, why are we sitting here today talking about that press conference or statement that Kyle Beach just gave

that is absolutely devastating? Devastating is not nothing. There was absolutely something to it. The team was wrong, if that's what it reported to Gary Bettman, and the NHL was wrong in relying on the team and not conducting its own investigation. The NHL fell down, leaving things to its team member. can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization,

empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's

not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, You and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cops. I want to get in a bit to the power dynamics in abuse. We've seen some of the questions and concerns and maybe misunderstandings about that online. online. And I want to ask you, you know, what are some of the things that might have made it difficult for someone in Kyle's situation to report what had happened to him at the time? Difficult is an understatement. I mean, let me take a step back to my situation. I was abused by Graham James. When you see pictures of Graham James, he's a short, pudgy, roly-poly hockey guy,

but he was a hockey god. He used their hockey dreams against them. Graham James, one of Canada's most notorious sex offenders and junior coaches, is set to be sentenced again. James was sentenced in March to two years behind bars for sexually assaulting ex-NHL star Theo Fleury and Fleury's cousin Todd Holt. The Crown suggests the trial judge went easy on the disgraced coach because he'd been sentenced in 1997 to three and a half years in prison for sexually assaulting former NHLer Sheldon Kennedy and two others. I, at the time, was 14 years old.

I'm 6'7 now. I am, back then, imagine me as an athlete at my size relative to little Graham James. But what you have to understand is that sexual assault isn't about the physical aspect of anything. Sexual assault absolutely involves a physical act, but it is far more a mental crime than a physical crime. And so when you peel back the power dynamic, you see that little Graham had all of the power and I had none of the power. When you look at the report that the Blackhawk, uh, council provided, there are pictures in the appendices that show just how slight and small and tiny a guy this video coach was. Kyle Beach was a first round NHL draft pick six foot three, well over 200 pounds. You can imagine the physical

specimen that he would have presented of on his own. If you were walking down the street and saw the two of them standing together, your first instinct would be to say, there's no way that little guy could ever abuse or take advantage of the big guy until you peel back the power dynamic. And you realize that the little guy had all of the power and the ability to make or break the career of the big guy. So what you're left with after the assault is who's going to believe me? Who's ever going to think that this guy could have gotten to me? Oh, and by the way, if you cross that hurdle, who's not going to think that I'm gay? And within the world of hockey, that's a

real problem. Not that there's anything wrong with being gay, but there is within the homophobic hockey environment, if you know what I'm getting at. So especially at a time when you're relatively young, inexperienced in this world, and potentially questioning your sexuality after what it is that just happened. How did that little guy get to me? How did that guy with no physical power get to me? I must have wanted it. Maybe I'm gay. And you can see what happens inside someone's head all of a sudden, and it's just a mess. And in that report, we heard that Aldrich was also threatening Kyle, saying, you know, you're not going to make it to the next level in hockey. And one of the things that I wanted to note here is at the time of the incident, Kyle Beach was what's known in hockey as a black ace for the team.

Can you explain that to me and how a coach like Aldrich, you know, who might have been in the leadership's ear have had a real influence here? Hockey is a reflection of society at large. And most of our careers are effectively ladders, where we try to take the next step and the next step and the next step with an ultimate goal in sight. The sports world is followed so widely because our greater struggles in broader society are effectively magnified within the close confines of sporting life. You can see the next step. You understand it's a very visible metaphor for what it is we all struggle through. And so that's why we watch with such keen interest. So imagine you're a first round draft pick. You've played junior hockey. You're called up to the minors. Your career is just starting.

The Chicago Blackhawks are on a Stanley Cup run and you get called up as part of a small group of players from the minor league affiliate to practice with the team. Just in case someone gets hurt, you may get the call up just to make sure that the backup goalies are getting workouts during the days when the other guys are getting rest. You might get, get a call up. Your next step is right there in front of you. And you are having daily interaction with the people around the team. You may not be on the ice for each and every practice, but you may be practicing for part of it and you may be practicing after it, but you're a part of what's happening. And so all of a sudden, a coach from the big team, the Blackhawks, is talking to you about what it's going to take

to make that next step. And then that coach is socializing with you. And then that coach is getting you into a compromising position. And then that coach is saying, if you don't do what I want you to do, I will badmouth you and make sure you never make it. That guy had all of the power over the seemingly impenetrable, strong, young athlete. And it's a recipe for disaster. How closely does his story resemble yours? And can you talk to me a little bit about that frustration of seeing this pattern go on so much over time? The situations are, one's effectively a carbon copy of the other.

The problem is you find yourself in a situation where you're exploited against your will. And you try to put some semblance of understanding on top of something you'll never understand he couldn't make sense of it just as i couldn't make sense of it so you don't understand who you are and where your place in the bigger world is you question your sexuality you believe you must have wanted it you you believe that the attacker must have seen a weakness in you you don't have any sense of self-worth coming out of it because if you're the type of person who can get caught up in something like that that you don't want to be caught up in, you must be worthless to begin with. Once your sense of self has been violated, it's a very difficult road back to find yourself. I guess what really cut me the most was when Kyle apologized to the boy who was abused after when

Brad Aldridge leaves the team and goes off and abuses after having been with Kyle. When Brad Aldridge did leave the Blackhawks in the summer of 2010, he went on to work for the U.S. Hockey National Program, actually, as well as Miami University in Ohio. And then in 2013, he wound up in Houghton, Michigan, where he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old high school player. And I wonder if that player is watching now, what your message to him is. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I didn't do more when I could to make sure it didn't happen to him, to protect him. But I also want to didn't happen to him, to protect him. But I also want 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, 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 wouldn't happen to anybody else. I was abused before Sheldon and Theo and everyone else who came after me. And one of the things that I struggled with when Sheldon came forward, and it's why I couldn't come forward at the time, was I held myself responsible for not having stopped Graham James when I could have stopped Graham.

And to see Kyle break down just over that and his concern that he was responsible for the abuse that followed him, it was just soul destroying. So the Chicago Blackhawks were handed down a $2 million fine after the details of the investigation came out last week. We also saw the swift resignations of GM General Manager Stan Bowman and the then coach Joel Quenville, who we spoke about earlier in this conversation. What else do you want to see happen here? No one is going to give him back his hockey career. He can't go back 11 years to when he was a first-round draft pick. So at this point, in my view, it's all about sending the right message on a go-forward basis. I think a fine is wonderful. I think it's interesting that there are harsher sentences for cap violations than there are for sexual assault that ran undealt with in your organization.

But at the same time, the NHL is an entertainment business. And what it wants to do with its penalties is up to the NHL, unless it impacts the way we deal with the messaging on a go-forward basis. I think it was essential that the executives lose their jobs to send this very clear message. If you are a part of an organization where something improper is happening, you have an affirmative obligation to stick your nose in and stop it and deal with it. You can't put it off. You can't look to the greater corporate good. You have to focus on the victim first and sort out what happened and get to the bottom of things ASAP. As I told Kyle on Saturday, I am sorry for what he has been through and thought he has been courageous, especially this past week.

We discussed the path. Just before we taped this episode, we heard from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who took questions. One of the other things he said was the NHL has made significant progress from where it was a decade ago. Whether it is the agenda and education provided to young players, written policies in place on harassment and other types of inappropriate conduct that is motivated by racial, sexual, religious, or other improper biases, or a reporting hotline, all NHL personnel

know what is and is not acceptable. What do you think of all that? Well, I think of a number of things. I think it's probably true that the league has taken all of those steps in terms of implementing policies. And I think society as a whole has done that over the past decade. Things are much better than when I was abused back in the late 70s. That said, if the people in positions of power aren't living the actual policy and instead are simply pointing to the fact that they have the written policies in place, there's still a problem. None of what the NHL has done over the intervening 11 years will ever take the place of ensuring that each and every organization is run by someone who believes all of that and who ensures that those reporting structures are actually going to be followed by all of the people within their organization. And I think that's maybe where hockey lags a little bit.

Hockey tends to hire hockey people. And that's not a slam on hockey people. That's simply to say that there's a hockey culture then that results because you've got the same hiring the same. But for hockey to change, I think we simply have to keep pushing hockey forward as the rest of society moves forward. The Me Too movement was earth-shattering and long overdue in 2017. And no executive group in any line of business having a meeting in 2021 would look at issues the same after 2017. The same will be in hockey now. This will be a step forward. And that what Kyle did

last week was make it more possible for subsequent victims to get the help that they need and tell their stories. Greg, thank you so much for this. I'm so glad you could come on the show and I'm so grateful for your voice and speaking on this. It's such an important thing to be able to have the bravery to speak out about. So thank you so much for this today. Well, you're welcome and thanks for having me on. Before we go today, just an update. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman says current Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Sheveldayoff will not be disciplined. This despite calls for him to step down.

Sheveldayoff was present at the time the Blackhawks leadership met to discuss the allegations against Aldrich in 2010. I do not believe he bore any responsibility for the club's failure to act appropriately. Because of his limited authority and circumstance, he left the meeting believing that this matter was going to be investigated by his bosses. And when Aldridge parted ways with the team, he thought that was what had happened. And finally, The Athletic reports Kyle Beach will meet Blackhawks officials on Tuesday. Blackhawks current CEO Danny Wertz says he's asked team lawyers to try to reach a fair resolution in line with the totality of the circumstances. And that's it for today.

I'm Angela Starrett in for Jamie Poisson. We'll talk to you again tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.