Winnipeg Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff will not be disciplined by the NHL after the league determined he was not responsible for the improper decisions made by the Chicago Blackhawks in the Brad Aldrich matter in 2010.
Cheveldayoff, who was the assistant general manager of the Blackhawks during the 2009-10 season, met with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman in New York on Friday morning.
“While on some level, it would be easiest to paint everyone with any association to this terrible matter with the same broad brush, I believe that fundamental fairness requires a more in-depth analysis of the role of each person,” Bettman said. “Kevin Cheveldayoff was not a member of the Blackhawks senior leadership team in 2010, and I cannot, therefore, assign to him responsibility for the Club’s actions, or inactions. He provided a full account of his degree of involvement in the matter, which was limited exclusively to his attendance at a single meeting, and I found him to be extremely forthcoming and credible in our discussion.”
Aldrich was with the Blackhawks when they captured the 2010 Stanley Cup. He sexually assaulted former player Kyle Beach during that playoff run, according to a damning investigative report released earlier this week by the team.
Since the report was made public, Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman and senior vice president of hockey operations Al MacIsaac left the organization and former Chicago head coach Joel Quenneville resigned as the head coach of the Florida Panthers.
Per the NHL on Friday, Cheveldayoff’s participation at the May 23, 2010 meeting in which he reportedly was made aware of claims of Beach that he was sexually assaulted by then-video coach Aldrich was “was extremely limited in scope and substance. In fact, in the course of the investigation, most of the participants in the May 23 meeting did not initially recall that Cheveldayoff was even present.”
The NHL determined that Cheveldayoff was the lowest-ranked person in the room and was learning of the subject matter for the first time in the presence of Bowman, then-CEO John McDonough and Quenneville. The league deemed that Cheveldayoff, in the presence of his superiors, believed the matter was going to be investigated.
“Cheveldayoff’s role within the Blackhawks’ organization at the time not only left him without authority to make appropriate organizational decisions relating to this matter, but as importantly, he was not thereafter even in a position to have sufficient information to assess whether or not the matter was being adequately addressed by the Blackhawks,” the league said as part of a statement. “In short, Cheveldayoff was not a participant in either the formulation or execution of the Club’s response.”
Cheveldayoff issued a statement following the NHL’s response on Friday.
“First and most importantly, I want to express my support of and empathy for Kyle Beach and all he has had to endure since 2010,” Cheveldayoff said in a statement. “He was incredibly brave coming forward to tell his story. We can all use his courage as an inspiration to do a better job of making hockey a safer space for anyone who wants to play the game.
“Further, I want to express my gratitude to the National Hockey League for the opportunity to meet with Commissioner Gary Bettman, in person, and directly share my role in and recollection of events while I was assistant GM of the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010.”
Cheveldayoff, 51, has served as the Jets’ general manager since the franchise relocated from Atlanta in 2011.
–Field Level Media
