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As the Patrick Kane story continues to careen around the interwebs like hyperactive toddler triplets with huge, drippy ice cream cones, maybe it’s time to clarify some things.
The last couple of message threads on this blog alone encapsulate a lot of the rampant speculation, rush to judgement, victim-bashing, hyperbole, outrage, you name it.
It (the range of reactions, not so much the actual story) is like a car wreck: oddly, even viscerally compelling, yet also sad, messy and pathetic.
I’m not here to tell you what you should and shouldn’t believe about the case. This is a hockey blog. Where the case (or lack thereof) and hockey intersect are the potential ramifications for the Blackhawks and for Kane the hockey player.
As far as that goes, there seem to be three big questions:
What (if anything) can the Blackhawks do about Kane?
What should they do?
What will they do?
I’m not here to indict Kane, either legally or reputationally. But to assume the possible legal entanglement and possible long-term ramifications for him (at least in terms of the Kane “brand…) will just go away is beyond naà¯ve.
Since my last blog, there is one more story out of Buffalo, this time “character testimony… from anonymous friends of the alleged victim, countering or defusing that of (the clearly dubious to begin with) bar owner, Mark Croce.
There is also the decision by EA Sports to remove Kane from the cover of NHL 16 and, at least for now, end all public association with the player.
The first story is to be expected, and is no more meaningful than Croce’s “story.… He said, she said—but the real evidence, if any exists, will be much more telling.
The second is more serious, and begins to point where this blog is going.
There is a very real danger of Kane becoming toxic from a pr/marketing perspective.
Understand, even if a broad cross-section of Blackhawks fans don’t get “return on brand equity,… the team they follow does. As well or better than any organization in pro sports.
Don’t believe me? Look at the value of the franchise over the last 10 years.
Sure, you can’t discount or ignore three Stanley Cups. But, even an occasionally harsh critic of the Blackhawks’ pervasive marketing and pr, like yours truly, has to acknowledge: these guys get it.
Since 2007 or so, the Blackhawk brand was resurrected, sent to the gym, trained like Drago, and kicked Rocky’s behind.
AND Apollo Creed’s for looking at it funny.
Meanwhile, one of the cornerstones of this resurrected brand didn’t exactly do everything it was supposed to do—in the person of Patrick Kane.
Make no mistake, the strategy was to rebuild the worth of the brand around Kane and Jonathan Toews, to link them to legends of the past, Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull (primarily), Tony Esposito, Denis Savard. To set One Goal; as the yearly standard, and to reach that goal.
Mission Accomplished.
But while that story unfolded, Kane (for one) didn’t always adhere to the narrative. I won’t go into the documented incidents in 2009, 2010 and 2012, much less the rumored ones then and since.
But what everyone needs to understand is that those incidents—and especially some of the specific circumstances and one common denominator in all of them and the latest this summer—establish a pattern that has to have the Blackhawks concerned. To borrow from the titles of my last two blogs:
“What Now?…
And “What’s Next?…
Please do not infer that I am dismissing the (possible) victim in the current issue in Western New York. But at some point in the larger arc of Patrick Kane as a Blackhawk, a lot of the details of specific incidents don’t matter. Is he guilty? What did he really do? What is being fabricated?
At a certain point, the sheer weight of bad pr, consistent and consistently disappointing (and troubling) circumstances, and the potential for more, and maybe worse, makes a player too toxic for that team and that city anymore.
Patrick Kane has been an integral part of three awesome Stanley Cup victories in Chicago. That said, playing for the Chicago Blackhawks—much less being the centerpiece of the team’s marketing and their brand— is a privilege and a responsibility.
Kane has definitely dropped the ball as far as his responsibilities to his team and the brands he endorses. Whether he has broken the law in this instance or not. There are numerous ways in which he put himself in a situation he shouldn’t have.
And EA will probably not be the last Kane endorsement to cut ties with him.
So really, there are two ticking time bombs here, both ‘set… by the events in Western NY, but one that has roots other incidents dating back to at least 2009 (which is why the comparison between Kane’s present dilemma and a similar one facing Drew Doughty in 2012 kind of fall flat. Kane’s history is likely different than Doughty’s and certainly better documented).
If the legal issues go away, that doesn’t at all mean the reputational issue does—for Kane or for the Hawks.
In my opinion, that issue has reached and surpassed it’s tipping point. And barring a significant, meaningful, sincere and public change of attitude and behavior from Kane, at this point, there’s no going back.
All for now,
JJ