What the F$%K Edmonton!?
I am absolutely infuriated by recent NHL news. Ken Holland after multiple years as the general manager of the Edmonton Oilers decided to step away. It was understandable. He had been there a long time and came close, but couldn’t get over the hump. The team was in good shape. All they had to do was not screw up hiring the next guy. The Oilers had one job and they messed up - big time. It was announced that Stan Bowman will be taking over as the new GM.
Stan Bowman was in Chicago during the run of dominance when they won three championships. He along with former head coach Joel Quennvile were praised for their leadership and team building. But then the skeletons came out of the closet and heads began to roll. Bowman, Quennvile, and others were complicit in covering up the situation with former player Kyle Beach. I won’t get into that much detail here with respect to the audience and the incident. If you want more information, you are more than welcome to look into it. But, a former assistant coach did something unacceptable to Beach. He was convicted of doing the same kind of crime against a teenager he was also coaching and was still allowed to work with the team. That’s all I’ll say about that.
When word got out, Bowman was pressured and finally did step down from his role in Chicago and Team USA. Quennville, who was coaching Florida at the time, was also forced to step down from his role as head coach. Multiple others who had since moved on and were working with other teams either were either terminated for their involvement, or cleared of any wrong doing. Because the two idiots we’re focusing on here were directly involved in the cover up, they were banned from the NHL for a period of time. If they wanted back in to the league, they had to speak with commissioner Gary Bettman and apply for reinstatement. Well guess what, Bowman is back.
This is wrong on so many levels and I really don’t think I need to justify why. Similar to the USA Gymnastics case which was directly related to what happened at the Michigan State gymnastics program, along with the situation at Florida State involving the former Heisman quarterback, people in positions of power protected the predators. They were told not to come forward. They were told to pretend it didn’t happen. In some cases, they were made a public mockery to the point where the public called them liars. But this case in particular, the team didn’t protect their player. They protected their interests and the brand.
Once news came out and everything was public information, the owner of Chicago hosted a town hall ahead of the regular season getting underway. A reporter asked what was going to be done moving forward to prevent this from happening and empower the players moving forward. The owner was furious by the question and began to yell and berate the reporter. He said in part that the matter was over, that they were no longer going to talk about it, and that the team had moved on. There is a video of this happening but it is so disgusting that I refuse to share it. As you can imagine, this did not go over well. The only thing done to try to absolve the bad PR was a BS statement apologizing for what was said.
I’ve come across people in college who either went through something similar or knew someone that did. In some of these cases, they either didn’t come forward fearing what may come after, or did and nothing got resolved. This is part of the reason I am so mad. I’ve said before that the wrong thing will happen in sports far more often than considering doing what is right, but you would hope there would be some decency regarding the people involved. That is not the case.
Moral codes should still matter and if you cross a line, there should be permanent ramifications. You should be on a black list, and quite frankly all of these people involved should be in jail for being aware of and covering up the crime. So just because they were given a timeout to think about what they did, now these people are getting another chance? The NHL should know better, especially because now multiple players from the Canadian junior team, who are now NHL players are facing charges and a trial for something similar. This is shameful and despicable.
We always talk and hear about the hockey code. The unwritten rule that should be obvious is to stand up for players and teammates off the ice too. The teammates of Kyle Beach did not come to his defense much like the organization didn’t. Now the Oilers have blood on their hands. It’s amazing how the jerseys and suits stay on these guys, because they are attached to slime.