Soakin’ in the Tubb: Why should we care about the NHL anymore?

By JAMES TUBB on November 13, 2021.

The National Hockey League seems to no longer care about the sport of hockey, so why should we?

It may sound weird coming from a sports reporter but it has been hard the last month or so to pay attention and care about the NHL. It all starts with the Chicago Blackhawks and their mishandling of Kyle Beach’s sexual assault, which seems to worsen by the day.

The idea of focusing on the Maple Leafs record and how they are going to get their bottom six producing this season almost seems irrelevant when news continues to come out of Chicago and how the team is refusing to settle with Beach and blatantly disregards John Doe 2. If you’re not up to speed on the biggest story in sports at the moment, John Doe 2 was a high school student assaulted by Brad Aldrich following the man’s time with the Blackhawks and his abuse of Beach.

NHL officials originally said they were willing to help Beach but could not help John Doe 2 because he wasn’t an NHL employee when he was assaulted. Now, the Blackhawks are ‘offering’ to pay for therapy for JD2 but want to review his medical records, school transcripts and income records to understand how the assault affected his life. The team has also made it clear that offering to help isn’t an admission of fault or responsibility but because they “sympathize with him on a human level.”

When Johnny Bower passed away in 2017, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said, “As the NHL family grieves his loss, we send heartfelt condolences and comfort to his wife…”

It has long been a tactic of the NHL’s to describe themselves as a family whenever one of the sport’s legends passes away or when there’s a chance to make themselves look good. Such as when Nashville Predators’ prospect Luke Prokop became the first player under contract with an NHL team to come out as gay last August, and Bettman said anyone connected to the NHL at any level has a place in its family.

It seems the NHL and Bettman are welcoming with this ‘family’ only until a person could shine a negative light on the league. Then they become the distant relative you don’t invite to Christmas dinner unless publicly shamed into it. Kyle Beach and John Doe 2 are attempting this with the Blackhawks and the NHL, seeking to force each to own up to faults and to pay for repercussions.

The NHL doesn’t care about hockey so much as it cares about making money – it’s a business, and profits are essential to the league’s existence. But whether it wants it or not, it also has a responsibility to build an inclusive game that serves all those within it, or touched by it. That includes players like Beach, a former 11th overall pick who could have had a decent NHL career if he hadn’t been assaulted and silenced by Aldrich and later verbally abused by his own so-called teammates.

It’s one thing to focus on the money-making side of the game, but if the league ignores its obligation to the safety and wellbeing of players – past, present and future – the game is left to deteriorate at its highest level. At the moment there isn’t much of an NHL ‘family’ at all, and the way it neglects both the game and its athletes can no longer go unnoticed. If the NHL stays this way – and there isn’t much sign of change on the horizon – the fans might as well forget hockey and cheer for corporate successes, because it’s the only thing that matters.

James Tubb is a sports reporter for the Medicine Hat News. He can be reached at jtubb@medicinehatnews.com