Blackhawks get Connor, not without dishonor
They won the draft lottery and will draft Connor Bedard, which means they skate away from a shameful moment.
Chicago was mildly excited when Michael Jordan came to town, somewhat stirred when Walter Payton arrived, and utterly frenzied Monday night, when its hockey team was granted the right to draft Connor Bedard.
The Blackhawks won the NHL draft lottery, a reward for stripping down its 2022-23 roster to the level of pantomime. Bedard was labeled the “future of hockey” by the Hockey News when he was 13. He ran up 143 points in 57 games for the Regina Pats this season and, in five international competitions, he has scored 57 points in 27 games. He was the MVP of the World Juniors this season.
Blackhawks fans immediately went online and ordered $2.5 million worth of tickets to watch Bedard’s first chapter. Those with a sharp memory noted that the one-day haul neatly wipes out the fine the Blackhawks had to pay in 2021, which is tip money for such a franchise, and for its outrageous nuglect. Shame, as we’ve learned, is priceless.
Kyle Beach is a former first-round draft choice who was on Chicago’s roster late in 2010 as a practice player. He claimed he was sexually assaulted by video coach Jeff Aldrich. Specifically, he told Blackhawks skills coach Paul Vincent that Aldrich had threatened with a baseball bat, forced him to perform oral sex with him, and masturbated on Beach’s back.
Vincent passed the complaint up the line. Nothing happened, except that the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, and Aldrich was right in the middle of all the celebrations. He was permitted to take the Cup home for a day, just as Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were, except that Aldrich had already signed a “separation agreement” with the Blackhawks. He still was getting severance checks. During one of the Cup celebrations, Aldrich made an advance toward a 22-year-old intern with the club.
Not until June 14, a month and four days after Beach was assaulted, did Blackhawks executives report the incident to human resources. According to a private investigation, coach Joel Quenneville said he didn’t want this matter interfering with the club’s run to a Cup.
Two more Cups followed, and the Blackhawks carried on until Beach filed a lawsuit. Resolution arrived, in a sense, 11 years after. General manager Stan Bowman eventually resigned, and so did Quennevlle, who by then was coaching the Florida Panthers.
Aldrich eventually served time and is a registered sex offender in Michigan. Beach, who played 12 years and wound up his career in Germany, is an assistant coach at Trinity Western University in British Columbia.
The Blackhawks paid the $2 million. That’s only $400,000 more than second-line winger Anders Bjork made this season, for eight points in 13 games. But now they have a face to plaster on the buses and billboards.
Contrast this with baseball’s reaction to the Houston Astros and the sign-stealing scandal of 2017. The Astros were fined $5 million, general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were suspended and later fired, and the club gave up its first and second round draft picks for two seasons. Even with that, MLB was roasted for its leniency. Had the NHL removed the Blackhawks’ next two first-round picks, the club wouldn’t have celebrated Bedard this week.
The first-overall draft pick is not a sure thing in the NHL, but it’s a blue-chip stock. Since 2004 Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Steven Stamkos and Nathan MacKinnon have been captains for teams that drafted them and won a total of seven Stanley Cups. Kane won three in Chicago. Marc-Andre Fleury was Crosby’s goalie during those three Cups in Pittsburgh.
Connor McDavid is on the verge of his second Hart Trophy in Edmonton. Auston Matthews and Taylor Hall have won Harts, although Hall won his in New Jersey after he was picked by Edmonton. There’s reason to believe that Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier have similar glories awaiting in New Jersey.
Bedard is armed with an irresistible shot, along with speed and cleverness and a towering level of competitiveness. He also has a rigor to him that’s unusual. He’s not on TikTok and has rarely been seen using his cellphone, according to teammates on the Regina Pats. He could have demanded that the Pats trade him to a stronger Western Hockey League contender, a routine thing on that level, but Bedard refused. The Pats lost to Saskatoon in a 7-game playoff series, one in which Bedard scored 20 points.
(For those who don’t already feel that the years are turbocharging past us, the Pats drafted 15-year-old Parker Trottier. The son of the former Islanders captain and Hall of Famer Bryan Trottier? Nope. The grandson. Ouch.)
Maybe we should reassess how we punish teams, players and coaches who transgress. For instance, West Virginia basketball coach Bob Huggins appeared on a Cincinnati sports talk show with a couple of post-pubescent children the other day. The hosts asked Huggins if he would take transfers from Xavier, Cincinnati’s notably hostile in-city rival, especially when Huggins was coaching the Bearcats. One thing led to another and Huggins made a reference to “Catholic f—-gs” from Xavier. This was not an inadvertant gaffe picked up by a hidden microphone, or uttered into a mic that was supposed to be cold. This was an intentional slur that Huggins knew would make Beavis and Butthead giggle in the studio, which it did.
Huggins, who has been around the block, almost immediately put out the pro forma apology. West Virginia authorities huddled. How would the university deal with this homophobic, sacreligious outburst from the highest-paid public employee in the state? Their decision barely raised a welt on Huggins’ wrist. He got a 3-game suspension, will have to take sensitivity training, and was docked $1 million in salary, which leaves him with $3.17 million per annum. In WestVirginia.
This was not only trivial but unimaginative. Here’s a better suggestion. Force Huggins to attend daily Mass and weekly confession. And then make West Virginia play at Xavier twice during the season, while the NCAA tournament committee makes sure that the Mountaineers are in the same section of the bracket with Xavier whenever possible.
The NHL and all other leagues could deal with tanking just as simply. Make the draft a blind draw, a 52-card pickup. That’s how Pittsburgh got Crosby, because the 2004-05 season never happened, and there was no order of finish to reverse. All the NHL teams went into the lottery. That should happen every year. Teams that present sewage to their fans and still charge them the same for tickets and concessions should not reap a benefit.
Instead, the Blackhawks arranged to score 59 points, one shy of the fewest in the league (Anaheim Ducks), as part of a plan to get the most renowned rookie since McDavid. They also replenished their vault. It should not have happened this way, but it did. And it worked.
Does this mean Kyle Beach will be forgotten? Probably not. You can’t forget what you never acknowledged.
Incredible article, Mark. Thank you.