On Monday, lawyers for a former Chicago Blackhawks player from the 2009-10 Stanley Cup run alleged the team allowed sexually abusive conduct by a former video coach to continue.
On Monday, lawyers for a former Chicago Blackhawks player from the 2009-10 Stanley Cup run alleged the team allowed sexually abusive conduct by a former video coach to continue.
Warning: The following story deals with allegations of sexual assault and may be upsetting or offensive to some readers.
The Chicago Blackhawks are facing another lawsuit, this time civil litigation for alleged sexual abuse of a player, John Doe, and a related cover-up in 2010. The Chicago Tribune's Phillip Thompson first reported the lawsuit on Sunday.
John Doe chose to remain anonymous, allowing his lawyers at Romanucci & Blandin to speak on his behalf at a press conference Monday.
According to Antonio Romanucci, founding partner of Romanucci & Blandin, John Doe and their law firm filed the new lawsuit against the Chicago Blackhawks “for allowing and perpetuating this conduct and placing winning over the health and wellfare of their players.”
That conduct allegedly involved John Doe being sexually abused by Blackhawks video coach Brad Aldrich during the 2010 season, specifically during the Stanley Cup playoffs. Aldrich was only exposed a decade later when former Blackhawks prospect Kyle Beach filed a lawsuit of his own against the club. By this time, Aldrich had gone on to allegedly sexually abuse other hockey players at the youth level. He pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal sexual assault of a high-school player and was sentenced to nine months in jail.
“This case is about institutional negligence at its worst, where the culture of win at all cost allowed a predator coach to abuse players at a time when the coach knew he could act with impunity…because the team was on a winning roll,” said Romanucci in his statements.
Beach reached a settlement with the Blackhawks in 2021 regarding his own alleged assault by Aldrich, which team officials knew about and chose not to act on until after the Blackhawks had won the 2010 Stanley Cup. At that time, the Blackhawks pledged to change and be a better organization, a point that Romanucci says will be put to the test in this lawsuit.
As Romanucci called it, the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team did “their own version of a hat trick” in how they responded to Aldrich’s abuse of players, which included assigning a doctor to John Doe, who lawyers alleged “gaslight” him, placing blame for the actions on the player.
In his statements, Romanucci described this “hat trick” as the team “Allowing our client to be groomed and abused by a sexual predator, failing to stop the behavior, terminate and report this predatory coach; and lastly, blame the victim, blame John Doe.”
The lawsuit was filed on Nov. 2 in Cook County Circuit Court, with the Chicago Blackhawks as the sole defendant, and seeks a jury trial. The complaint includes six counts: “negligent hiring and retention of Brad Aldrich, negligent supervision, negligent infliction of emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violations of the gender violences act.”
The allegations in this latest lawsuit have not been proven in court. The Blackhawks declined to comment on details but said the team takes allegations of workplace conduct seriously and implemented numerous improvements throughout the organization to ensure the safety and well-being of their employers and players, per the Tribune's report.
Jason Friedl, senior attorney in the case, said during the recall of John Doe from the AHL for the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs, Aldrich allegedly “had direct and constant access to the plaintiff and used his authority as part of the coaching staff to groom, to harass, to threaten, and ultimately to assault the plaintiff for his own sexual gratification.”
Those allegations included sneaking up on the plaintiff while he was having sexual intercourse with a woman and rubbing his feet in the dark, sending photos of his genitals to the player, discussing oral sex with the plaintiff, playing pornography in front of players, offering to pay for sexual favors for the player on the condition he could watch, and “ultimately threatening our client’s career if he reported these actions.”
John Doe allegedly did report the actions to the Blackhawks’ team president, but according to lawyers, no action was taken.
Romanucci & Blandin are seeking financial compensation for the damages done.
THN's Chicago Blackhawks site has more on the lawsuit, Monday's press conference and a team meeting following Sunday's game against the New Jersey Devils.