Chicago Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz has submitted a letter to Lanny MacDonald, chairman of the Hockey Hall of Fame, asking for Brad Aldrich’s name to be removed from the Stanley Cup. Aldrich, a video coach for the Blackhawks during their 2009-10 Stanley Cup run, is the center of a sexual abuse case which involved a former Blackhawks player.
The Hockey Hall of Fame manages the Stanley Cup, including the engraving of the names for each Stanley Cup winning team.
The victim, former Blackhawks draft pick and then-prospect Kyle Beach, came forward as the player “John Doe” in the case, on Wednesday. According to the findings (which can be read in full HERE) by Jenner & Block, a law firm hired by the Blackhawks to conduct an independent investigation into the matter, Aldridge sexually abused Beach during the Blackhawks playoff run in 2010.
“HHOF Chair, Lanny McDonald spoke w/NHL Bettman & Daly today re: the request from the Blackhawks to have Aldrich’s name removed from the Cup. The parties agree this request is appropriate & will have further dialogue, incl w/ Cup trustees, on how best to effectuate this request.”
— Kelly Masse (@KellyHockeyHall) October 29, 2021
By Jon Sorensen
I’d also like to move that even though he didn’t play in a game that Kyle’s name should be added to cup to make a small step forward through this story. This isn’t first time name has been removed,peter pocklington had his fathers name put on in 80’s & nobody caught it till few years later!
Now there’s a good idea!
There remains a general, albeit perhaps subconsciously held, mentality out there: Men can take care of themselves, and boys are basically little men. It is the mentality that might help explain why the book Childhood Disrupted was only able to include one man among its six interviewed adult subjects, there being such a small pool of ACE-traumatized men willing to formally tell his own story of childhood abuse. Could it be evidence of a continuing subtle societal take-it-like-a-man mindset? One in which so many men, even with anonymity, would prefer not to ‘complain’ to some stranger/author about his torturous childhood, as that is what ‘real men’ do? I tried multiple times contacting the book’s author via internet websites in regards to this non-addressed florescent elephant in the room, but I received no response.
Furthermore, I’ve noticed over many years of Canadian news-media consumption that when victims of abuse/assault, sexual or otherwise, are girls their gender is readily reported as such; however, when they’re boys, they’re usually referred to gender-neutrally as children. It’s as though, as a news product made to sell the best, the child victims being female is somehow more shocking than if male. Also, I’ve heard and read news-media references to a 19-year-old female victim as a ‘girl’, while (in an unrelated case) a 17-year-old male perpetrator was described as a ‘man’.