Well I'm probably about to get lit up for this, but there's some background to this that certainly had to have been taken into account at the time.
All the posters just hammering on every player on the team is non sense. Most of these players were just still kids themsleves. 10 or more years ago, how often as a teenager or new employee did you remained silent when something happened that shouldn't've , maybe it wasn't considered a big deal, or you were too scared to say anything, or unable stop anything. How many times have one of you stood by as somebody was bullied, or worse assaulted, too shy, too afraid, not knowing what to do, who to turn to or what should be done? Elliot Freidman is speaking about this right now on the Jeff Marek show.
It is also very believable that the players could not see how this was an assault. Beach was 6'3" 220 while the creep was just 5'8" 150. "How can someone that much smaller then you assault you?" Wouldn't this be the first question you'd ask yourself? I also believe, based on Kyle Beach's junior past, all involved had reason to doubt Beach's story. He joined the Blackhawks with a reputation for poor on ice and off ice behavior, he fell to where he did in the draft for reasons. The Kyle Beach stories arrived in Chicago long before Kyle Beach arrived in Chicago, Kyle Beach was "hockey culture". I have to think being known as a trouble maker would've casted the most doubt in the players minds as to what really happened.
https://www.pressreader.com/canada/t...82368330251457
As for the coaching staff and management, certainly this was blown off hoping it would either go away or Beach's story was a lie. Sweeping "stuff under the rug" happened all the time at all levels of hockey, and surely this is how the organization was trying to handle this.
Crap I'm just all over the place in this post, there were several reasons to doubt an assault took place, however the fact that there was a total cover up is a disgrace, the fact that the creep was still around the team in the days following was a disgrace and individuals writing letters of recommendation for this creep is total bull****.