Sexual assault allegation against former Blackhawks coach

[calumniate]

New steve dangle podcast interviews Rick Westhead about the allegations for the full show.

Of note during the end.. the nhl is still 'investigating' the bill peters / Akim Aliu situation, with no resolution to this point. Likely will be swept under the rug. Pretty disgusting

[Boreal]

Originally Posted by BagoPucks

Tough news to hear. Sad to see this in the game. Unhealthy cultures can exist anywhere and culture is just repeated human behavior and understanding of those actions. Doesn't take much to build a poor culture.

Sadly this is the culture that dominates hockey culture. Graham James is excoriated as a bad apple. The cronyism of the culture let’s this insanity occur.

Or the Junior coach who was just exposed, or the Calgary cop who was sexually grooming a 16 year old girl.

Yes all hockey culture is not like these creeps, but the entitled, crony,and insular nature of hockey culture is what gives their behavior oxygen to live.

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by Boreal

Sadly this is the culture that dominates hockey culture. Graham James is excoriated as a bad apple. The cronyism of the culture let’s this insanity occur.

Or the Junior coach who was just exposed, or the Calgary cop who was sexually grooming a 16 year old girl.

Yes all hockey culture is not like these creeps, but the entitled, crony,and insular nature of hockey culture is what gives their behavior oxygen to live.

I wouldn’t say dominates. The media perpetuates that. But what you are insinuating is that every hockey coach is sexually assaulting his players.

Which is obviously not true.

[Boreal]

Originally Posted by Goriders

I wouldn’t say dominates. The media perpetuates that. But what you are insinuating is that every hockey coach is sexually assaulting his players.

Which is obviously not true.

Did you even read what I wrote?

The culture or insular entitled cronyism dominates hockey culture, not sexual predation.

It’s the exact environment where creeps like this can hide to manipulate people as they accumulate power once they are in the “in group”.

Too many sports have this environment that enables this behavior but hockey is particularly obscene.

Take a look at “Before the lights go out” by Sean Fire-Gerald or listen to some of the stories Marek tells on 31 thoughts about coaches getting $5,000-10,000 top ups by parents to ensure ice time for their kid.

The whole system is so rotten that some junior teams are literally thinking of charging kids to play because they know there are parents who will pay, & pay, & pay.

This is pervasive and exactly the arrangement that has predators licking their lips.

The media doesn’t perpetuate this, if anything if enables it.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Goriders

I wouldn’t say dominates. The media perpetuates that. But what you are insinuating is that every hockey coach is sexually assaulting his players.

Which is obviously not true.

No hat he said was that hockey culture allows such coaches to continue coaching for a long period of time. Not reporting or taking other actions = aiding and abetting.

[dammage79]

I mean how long did Graham James keep coaching? It took decades to oust that Fu**er.

[GreenLantern2814]

Players, when this sort of thing happens again, feel free to beat the #### out of the person everyone knows did it, and make the cops ask “why’d you do that?”

I know y’all love to hype how you “police your own” - maybe try it.

[CroCop]

Originally Posted by Coach

It’s all just super disappointing. Shatters the illusion of Toews’ leadership qualities and the legacy of that whole group. This type of behaviour doesn’t happen unless the captain and coach are condoning and participating. They were still young players at the time, but this is a lot to try and side step with any sort of appeal of growth since then.

The story I’ve gotten regarding this is that it happened within one of Chicago’s minor league teams. Though very likely word of what happened trickled up to the Blackhawks players they can’t be blamed for something that didn’t happen within their group

[tvp2003]

New reporting on this today and it doesn't sound very good: https://www.tsn.ca/rick-westhead-for...ions-1.1680876

Former Chicago Blackhawks skills coach Paul Vincent told investigators probing abuse allegations that after two players confided in him that they were sexually assaulted by former video coach Brad Aldrich, he shared their accounts with both the team’s sports psychologist and director of security.

During an Aug. 7 interview via Zoom with three lawyers from Jenner & Block – the Chicago law firm hired in June by the Blackhawks to scrutinize claims that team management covered up the alleged sexual abuse of two players – Vincent said he first learned of the allegations from Chicago defenceman Nick Boynton in May 2010 when the team was in San Jose during the Stanley Cup Western Conference final.

Vincent said he shared the allegations with Blackhawks sports psychologist James Gary and Brian Higgins, then the team’s director of security.

A day later, Vincent said he was called into a meeting with team officials including president John McDonough, general manager Stan Bowman, vice president of hockey operations Al MacIsaac, and Gary. Vincent told the Jenner & Block lawyers another person was present at the meeting but he could not recall who it was.

“I come in and Al MacIsaac says to me, ‘What do you know?’” Vincent said. “I said, ‘The same thing I told [Gary and Higgins].’ And with that, Al MacIsaac did most of the speaking. He said, ‘We’ve got it handled. You are assuming something happened and we’re going to look into it. You don’t need to look into it anymore.’” Vincent said he advised the executives to report the alleged abuse to police. “I did say to them I think you need to call the Chicago PD (Police Department) and have them quietly investigate,” Vincent told the Jenner & Block investigators. “That’s when MacIsaac said, ‘You don’t need to worry about this. We’ll take care of it… You can leave now.’ So I walk outside. Two of the coaches are still waiting for me, John Torchetti and Mike Haviland. I said, ‘You won’t believe what just happened.’ I explained it. And we went off to dinner.”

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by Boreal

Did you even read what I wrote?

The culture or insular entitled cronyism dominates hockey culture, not sexual predation.

It’s the exact environment where creeps like this can hide to manipulate people as they accumulate power once they are in the “in group”.

Too many sports have this environment that enables this behavior but hockey is particularly obscene.

Take a look at “Before the lights go out” by Sean Fire-Gerald or listen to some of the stories Marek tells on 31 thoughts about coaches getting $5,000-10,000 top ups by parents to ensure ice time for their kid.

The whole system is so rotten that some junior teams are literally thinking of charging kids to play because they know there are parents who will pay, & pay, & pay.

This is pervasive and exactly the arrangement that has predators licking their lips.

The media doesn’t perpetuate this, if anything if enables it.

That can happen anywhere where certain people have power or influence over. others. You’re generalization is unfair.

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

New reporting on this today and it doesn't sound very good: https://www.tsn.ca/rick-westhead-for...ions-1.1680876

It’s going to be very interesting to see what sort of consequences come out of all of this for the people that were in the know but did nothing.

Legally it might be true that they weren’t required to do anything. But morally they probably were.

There are some big names attached to this.

[rohara66]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

New reporting on this today and it doesn't sound very good: https://www.tsn.ca/rick-westhead-for...ions-1.1680876

Scum. Hawks are a trash organization, heads should roll.

[GioforPM]

There’s no way Q didn’t know.

[Monahammer]

This story gets worse every cm that it is dug into.

Honestly, this story makes me want to abandon watching the NHL. They're currently trying to stop this story from emerging and protecting those who were clearly negligent. How can we support that?

[Boreal]

Originally Posted by Goriders

That can happen anywhere where certain people have power or influence over. others. You’re generalization is unfair.

How? So hockey doesn’t have ivory towers of power and influence, especially minor hockey, especially in Alberta where Hockey Super League are operating outside traditional hockey environments where people can be held accountable?

It is completely fair. We are close to a 1/4 century since Graham James was exposed, and if anything hockey has shown that little has changed. Graham James was a bad apple and it’s business as usual. The level of Groupthink is insane. Anyone who stands up to it is punted.

If it wasn’t business as usual there would be systematic procedure to expose disgusting human beings to the light of day.

Yet… again, and again, and again it happens.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

This story gets worse every cm that it is dug into.

Honestly, this story makes me want to abandon watching the NHL. They're currently trying to stop this story from emerging and protecting those who were clearly negligent. How can we support that?

what are you going to follow?
This sort of thing is in every form of entertainment. sports or otherwise.

we just have to hope they keep getting exposed and things continue to get better over time.

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by Boreal

How? So hockey doesn’t have ivory towers of power and influence, especially minor hockey, especially in Alberta where Hockey Super League are operating outside traditional hockey environments where people can be held accountable?

It is completely fair. We are close to a 1/4 century since Graham James was exposed, and if anything hockey has shown that little has changed. Graham James was a bad apple and it’s business as usual. The level of Groupthink is insane. Anyone who stands up to it is punted.

If it wasn’t business as usual there would be systematic procedure to expose disgusting human beings to the light of day.

Yet… again, and again, and again it happens.

What percentage of sexual assualts happen in the hockey world specifically vs the rest of the general population. I bet it wouldn’t even show up on a calculator if you did the division.

You’re making a massive generalization that does not match reality. Did you play hockey? Or have you been involved in hockey or other minor sports in the last decade?

I’ve been involved in both and my comments are from experience. What you are describing is far from the truth. You seem to have an axe to grind and I can’t figure out why. Can you give some more background as to why your are so hard on the hockey world. Is it based on first hand experiences? Or like I said above a generalization.

Trying to understand your position.

[monkeyman]

Advocacy group wants Bowman suspended from U.S. Olympic team.

https://www.tsn.ca/rick-westhead-adv...team-1.1693176

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

Advocacy group wants Bowman suspended from U.S. Olympic team.

https://www.tsn.ca/rick-westhead-adv...team-1.1693176

as he should be.

[Samonadreau]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

Advocacy group wants Bowman suspended from U.S. Olympic team.

https://www.tsn.ca/rick-westhead-adv...team-1.1693176

From the article

"This is the paradigm we keep seeing,” Hamilton said. “Not only do we have a perpetrator, but powerful institutions are essentially ignoring the fact that they have an abuser in their midst."

.......Pretty much