Jonathan Toews, the NHL’s Culture Problem, and What We Still Haven’t Learned
The league’s eagerness to embrace disgraced figures like Toews and Bowman proves that hockey’s accountability era was just for show.
After two long years trying to figure out what was wrong with his body, Jonathan Toews is attempting an NHL comeback. The former Chicago Blackhawk captain and three time Stanley Cup Champion spent the previous two years working his way back from an auto-immune disease. Now, Toews is set to return to the league as a member of his home town team, the Winnipeg Jets.
While most of the buzz around Toews’ return was rooted in the pursuit of a childhood dream, the return to his hometown, there’s an elephant in the room that legacy hockey media is wholly ignoring because it’s convenient. We’re all of four years removed from Kyle Beach bravely coming forward and putting his name on allegations of sexual misconduct that the Blackhawks failed to investigate at the time.
During Chicago’s 2010 Stanley Cup final run that kicked off a three championships in five years window, the team’s video coach, Brad Aldrich, sexually assaulted Blackhawks first round pick and black ace Kyle Beach. As a black ace, Beach was around the team in the playoffs as a practice player or potential injury replacement. Beach was the Blackhawks 11th overall pick in 2008 and trying to break through as a regular NHLer.
The sexual assault occurred during the Western Conference final, there was a team meeting where current Edmonton Oilers general manager Stan Bowman and current Winnipeg Jets general manger Kevin Cheveldayoff along with team executives and current Anaheim Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville all effectively tabled taking action on the premise that the team’s president, John McDonough, would be the one to take action.
The Blackhawks would go on to win their first Stanley Cup since the late 50s and Aldrich was allowed to participate in the team’s championship parade and festivities. Ultimately, Aldrich was given a choice, either he could leave the team with no questions asked or he could submit to an investigation. Aldrich opted to leave the Blackhawks. And in a series of stops was accused of further misconduct, this ultimately culminated in Aldrich sexually abusing a child in the state of Michigan and went to jail for nine months.
Of course, the world was a very different place in 2020 and 2021 as these stories trickled out in drips. The stakeholders at large, the NHL, its television partners and legacy media affiliates all continually carried themselves like deer in the headlights, referring to ongoing investigations and saying it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment on in the moment.
Some, like Toews, his teammate Patrick Kane, coach Quenneville and GM Bowman all made asses of themselves, showing sorrow for each other, lying about their knowledge of the incident and its subsequent downplaying.
What do we want from our teams?
Now, this article isn’t a referendum on Toews, Kane, Quenneville, Bowman, or anyone else affiliated with the Blackhawks during that period of time. This is to ask a very serious question about how consumption frames our interactions with cultural institutions and its representatives. What are the responsibilities of our shared public figures and how do we as the greater public hold them accountable?
The Blackhawks attempted to make things right on the surface. The organization commissioned a law firm to investigate and subsequently publish a report into the incident. Bowman resigned, Toews and Kane were told they wouldn’t be extended and the Blackhawks were moving into the future.
Yet, the reports about Toews’ return to hockey and the Jets almost entirely ignore why the only team he’d ever played for let him go. Sure, Toews will almost assuredly retire as a hockey hall of famer and a legend of the game, but even Kyle Davidson, Bowman’s replacement, recognized that the Blackhawks needed to move on. That any affiliation with members of that 2010 team, at least at the time, was untenable in the court of public opinion.
Personally, I’ve never really felt good about how the NHL at large handled this situation. In the fallout of a league shattering scandal, there was an opportunity to take action and change for the better. As of June 20th, 2025, the NHL still does not have a uniform sexual misconduct policy. All investigations and discipline fall under the purview of the commissioner’s office which enables inconsistent enforcement.
As for each party on an individual basis. Toews' return is almost entirely framed around a Winnipeg native coming home to play for his childhood favorite team after spending two years away battling a career threatening illness. There’s no reflection that Toews, who was revered as one of the great leaders of his era in the league effectively did nothing to quell the turmoil around the organization and instead chose to defend those decision makers who ultimately took no action and allowed Aldrich to subsequently sexually harass a minor because of their failure.
Toews’ inability to take any accountability, to show any empathy for the victim and instead the people he was close to shows a narrow minded world view.
Not to be outdone, Kane offered an equally asinine defense of Bowman.
Hockey’s culture is rooted in the team, the team and the team. From a young age, you’re expected to put the team first. Part of that institutional building is entrusting the well being of others in the in group to the greater collective. It’s why hazing and other team bonding activities are still held with reverence, in breaking rules as a collective, they’re fostering mutual trust with each other. Of course, that creates a culture of loyalty over integrity and honesty, but that’s not a direct goal of professional sports.
Regardless of where society is at right now in its backlash to the backlash’s backlash, hockey still has a culture issue that isn’t being addressed. After hand wringing, crocodile tears and promises of better behavior and more disciplined journalism to hold power to account, it’s hard to not feel like very little was learned here.
The accountability myth
A child in Houghton Michigan was sexually abused because of the Blackhawks’ organizational cowardice. Even if you wanna give all of the parties involved in the closed door meeting to discuss the Aldrich allegations, the benefit of the doubt, no one following up or taking initiative is not a great look. Then, throw in the fact that the exiled parties all kept their names in the job cycle when they were supposed to be “learning from their mistakes.”
Speaking of Bowman, if you want to take the cynical view of his “rehabilitation,” if you can even call it that, the former Blackhawks’ GM paid a couple thousand dollars for consulting workshops from Sheldon Kennedy, the NHL’s go to misconduct consultant. Not a mention of the work within said workshops, and Bowman never fails to mention that he has a connection to Kyle Beach now. Surely there’s no power imbalance there that makes the latter feel obligated to let Bowman name drop him as a means of proving rehabilitation.
Bowman’s penalty for his inaction was three years of not working in the NHL and having his name floated for every vacant general manager job. The NHL would playfully slap away the rumors and say “we haven’t deemed him eligible to return yet,” but that phrasing made it very obvious that it was a matter of if, not when for Bowman.
So much of this situation is gross. As someone who attributes hockey with bringing him out of his shell as a person, introducing me to some of my best friends and so many amazing life opportunities, I feel a personal responsibility that the game can provide similar chances to others. I often go back to what then Minnesota Wild defenseman Matt Dumba said during the 2020 playoffs and a moment of silence during the height of the civic protest during that summer.
“Hockey is a great game, but it could be a whole lot greater and that starts with all of us.”
Our game and our community looks all the more worse for simply allowing Quenneville and Bowman to bide their time in the periphery as friendly media entities laundered their respective names and kept them in hiring cycles.
Now, three years removed, Bowman is at the helm of the Oilers who’ve been to consecutive Stanley Cup finals and are a perennial contender. Quenneville is back behind the bench because he finally found a team, the Anaheim Ducks, desperate enough to trade in its respectability for some of his baggage in the hopes he could drag a lifeless organization back to the postseason.
The Ducks look like an organization that would do anything for a semblance of respect, ironically it’s led them to someone not deserving of any as a leader or a man. For all of Quenneville’s bluster, when his toughness and resolve was actually needed, he left it to others to handle.
Ultimately, it’s why Toews return to the NHL now shows how little object permanence anyone has. No one learned anything from Beach being assaulted and he has to give an endorsement anytime Bowman drops his name as proof of his rehabilitation
The unfortunate reality is that most of us on an individual basis don’t have the means to enact institutional change. That’s where the value of collective action becomes obvious and why the “cancel culture” outgrowth of the late 2010s had legs. It was actionable and a means of a largely non-empowered public to take action. In a heavily consumerist society where political action is almost impossible because of partisan rancor, refusing to buy certain products or consuming certain media was one of the few ways to express displeasure with the direction of a person or company.
While on an individual basis, one can make the conscious decision to not frequent certain businesses or to listen to certain music, it’s a whole lot harder to cancel a professional sports team. Remove yourself from the discourse because you feel the player or team isn’t worth it and you’re losing your seat at the table. Harp on the team or player’s indiscretion and you’re inundated with slurs from the right wing culture warriors who think the character of sexual abusers is a worthy cause to champion and risk alienating your general audience while wholly being dependent on them to grow.
That’s why the institutional stakeholders need to take a vested interest. I know most of the hockey world doesn’t seem to care a whole lot. Eddie Olczyk eagerly references the 2010 Blackhawks whenever he can on TNT broadcasts and that Stanley Cup final at any moment and there’s no hesitation at all in his mind. I think that’s what bothers me the most in the present, the people who are supposed to care about protecting the game care about their role in the game more than the game itself.
If the stakeholders were as emotionally invested in the game’s standing as opposed to their own standing within it, it’d be a better place. Instead, we hear Olczyk wax poetically about how Stan Bowman is named after the Stanley Cup, how Quenneville gives the Ducks the credibility they deserve, that Kane and Toews are both future hall of famers and teams are lucky to have their respective presence around them.
The NHL’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy surrounding sexual misconduct and accountability for impropriety is both unsatisfying and morally corrosive. Since the powers that be are worried about maintaining continuity of the boy’s club that makes up the pool of players, coaches and front office staff, if you speak out, you risk exile and lose your chance at a lifelong meal ticket. The culture manufactures both silence and complicity at risk of losing your livelihood or being labeled difficult. Hell, Beach himself got the label after being a victim of sexual assault because the greater hockey world didn’t learn what happened for almost ten years.
So, when you think about it, there probably is no more perfect fit than Toews going back to his childhood favorite team where the Jets can attempt to drown out any noise with nostalgia bait. They can post pictures of Toews as a kid wearing Jets 1.0 gear, they can clip quotes of him talking about how great an opportunity it is to chase the dream once again. Insiders can pretend a 37-year-old 2 years removed from his last NHL season and coming off of a major illness is going to slide in as a second line center on a Stanley Cup contender because he used to be great.
Hockey is rooted in its institutions and traditions, that reversion to the past and doing things the way they’ve always been done is limiting the game’s ceiling. I’m not saying Toews should never be allowed to play hockey again if he’s done any meaningful growth as a person. But, the fact Toews didn’t back in 2021, has entirely centered his comeback around his physical health journey and his role as a hockey player.
It’s great Toews is having the chance to chase the dream one last time, his hockey career cannot be taken away from him. But when the hockey world at large is ignoring the elephant in the room to make that dream a reality, it’s not an honest account of reality. It’s unfortunate that the hockey media apparatus is wholly unequipped to report on anything other than transactions and player movement, but it's a byproduct of media entities becoming stakeholders in the league.
There is more left in Toews' story, but no matter how much he wants to just ignore his role in every part of the 2010 Stanley Cup championship. Aldrich’s name is crossed out on the physical Stanley Cup, but it’s still there on the same segment as Toews. And until the former Blackhawks’ captain can meaningfully apologize or show a modicum of growth as a person, this comeback tour will be self-congratulating instead of meaningful.