CHICAGO (WLS) — The Chicago Blackhawks organization is being sued for alleged sexual abuse and harassment of a former player during its 2009-2010 Stanley Cup season.
Local firm Romanucci & Blandin filed the civil suit in Cook County on Thursday.
The video in the player above is from a previous report.
The “John Doe” complaint alleges that former video coach Brad Aldrich “groomed, harassed, threatened and assaulted” the player, who is a former member of the Blackhawks’ “Black Aces” squad and teammate of Kyle Beach, and that the organization covered up his allegations.
The suit also says the Blackhawks put “Stanley Cup Championship aspirations ahead of the welfare of its players.”
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Back in 2021, the Blackhawks released details of an independent investigation that found the organization waited three weeks during the Stanley Cup season in 2010 to look into allegations by former center Beach that Aldrich sexually assaulted him.
Beach chose to speak out about what happened to him.
“To see him paraded around, lifting up the cup at the parade, at the team pictures at the celebrations, it made me feel like nothing,” Beach said. “It made me feel like I didn’t exist.”
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Aldrich would leave the team after the Stanley Cup celebration, eventually heading back to his hometown, where he was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor in 2013, for assaulting a 16-year-old high school player. Aldrich is now a registered sex offender in Michigan.
The team’s general manager and president, Stan Bowman, resigned in 2021, and the club was fined $2 million.
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