Tonight, the Penguins will make their lone visit to the Windy City to take on the disgraced Chicago Blackhawks. Held up as a model organization in the cap era the Blackhawks couldn’t be troubled to deal with an in-house sexual abuser. Not only did they look they other way they gave him a glowing letter of recommendation so he could go on and abuse other young men later on down the road both literally and figuratively.
All the Stanley Cups and the winning won’t wash the slimly layer of negligence off of this franchise. Their conduct was disgraceful. Sure, the NHL x’d out the convicted sexual abuser, but they should definitely go after a few more names
Schar said John McDonough, Stan Bowman, Al MacIsaac, Kevin Cheveldayoff, Jay Blunk and Joel Quenneville were all informed of the allegations on May 23. "Accounts of that meeting vary signficantly."
— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) October 26, 2021
Not if you ask Captain Not Serious about sexual assault, though
Jonathan Toews: "To me, Stan and Al...they're not directly complicit in the activites that happened."
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) October 28, 2021
"People like Al and Stan have made coming to the Blackhawks...one of the special places to play hockey. I have a ton of respect for them as people."
Every one of those men named in the tweet above had a bigger responsibility than what they showed. They all let the chase for the Stanley Cup guide their morals and choices. The chain of command argument falls on deaf ears for me. The offender in question was on the ice for the Stanley Cup ceremony. These men had knowledge, but the winning was too intoxicating. Ultimately, every time someone looks at the Stanely Cup and sees the 2009-10 Blackhawks they won’t and shouldn’t be remembered for the hockey stuff.
What do they say about throwing stones in glass houses? The Penguins share more than three Stanley Cup wins in the cap era with the Blackhawks. They too have their own negligence involving sexual assault. While the Penguins won’t be getting anybody x’d out from the Stanley Cup (allegations are from 2018) they in all likelihood are going to have to answer to some serious wrong doing because of what Clark Donatelli allegedly did and what the front office allegedly didn’t handle appropriately. We are still waiting on the details and court cases to play out against the Penguins. They deserve whatever shame and punishments are waiting for them if the allegations are true.
The league’s two "model" franchises of the cap era have modeled some pretty heinous behavior.
Edit 9:26 AM
Not looking like the public will be getting any answers on this front
Breaking news: The Pittsburgh Penguins and Erin & Jarrod Skalde have reached a resolution.
— Mark Scheig (@markscheig) November 9, 2021
Release below. pic.twitter.com/P8SInzPWCc
— Mark Scheig (@markscheig) November 9, 2021
So that's that. This certainly does not mean the Penguins handled the situation like they should have, just that they had enough money and incentive to make it go away.
Thanks for reading!