July 2, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg

Stan Bowman, Al MacIsaac, and Joel Quenneville were reinstated by the NHL on Monday. These three former Chicago Blackhawks staff members became ineligible to work in the NHL in 2021 after the findings of an investigation into the internal handling of a serious sexual assault incident in 2010. 

Bowman, MacIsaac, and Quenneville will be eligible to obtain work in the NHL starting on July 10, 2024. Bowman has been reported as a “top candidate” for the currently vacant Edmonton Oilers general manager position by multiple NHL insiders.

Bowman will become a top candidate for #Oilers GM vacancy. Believe he was on Edmonton’s radar when Jeff Jackson was hired last summer though still ineligible then. https://t.co/x369DKhs0p

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) July 1, 2024

Oilers fans have already started voicing their disgust at the mere notion of Bowman entering the Oilers organization online, which is valid. I’m going to start this piece off by saying that if you’re truly angry about Bowman potentially becoming a member of the Oilers organization because of his actions in 2010, then I encourage you to do something that will actually make a difference in the lives of victims of sexual assault by donating to the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton (SACE) rather than just voicing your outrage online. You can go directly to SACE’s website to donate. I have also started a fundraising page for SACE that will be active until July 10, 2024. I have made the first donation. If Bowman is hired by the Oilers on or after that date, I will start another fundraising page.

The Heavy Hockey Network is proud to host the Heavy Hockey Showdown in support of SACE every year. The most recent iteration of the event in February raised nearly $50,000 for SACE, and we plan on raising more for SACE next year. 

I personally raised $1,095 for SACE as part of the event. Let me be clear in saying that I do not condone sexual assault in any way, shape, or form; and I’m proud to support SACE. However, I’m also not a person that believes in reacting to situations with torches and pitchforks. I don’t feel that it’s right to default to outrage whenever the court of public opinion says that’s the only acceptable reaction. I believe in educating myself on the facts and forming opinions based on those facts.

I’m going to evaluate Bowman as a potential candidate for the Oilers GM role in this piece. I have read through the report from Jenner & Block that outlines the findings from their independent investigation into the Blackhawks and their handling of the 2010 sexual assault incident. The report contains graphic information about the incident of sexual assault, so please use your discretion if you choose to click the link. I will also examine Bowman’s body of work as the GM of the Blackhawks from 2009-2021 in part two of this piece.

Related: On Stan Bowman: Part Two – The Hockey Perspective

I’ll summarize the Jenner & Block report’s explanation of how Blackhawks executives handled the sexual assault situation internally as best I can in the limited space available here. 

The incident is said to have occurred sometime between May 8 and May 10, 2010 while the team was in Chicago for Game 5 of the Blackhawks’ second round series against the Vancouver Canucks.

The team was in San Jose for the first two games of the 2010 Western Conference Final from May 12, 2010 until May 19, 2010 when they flew to Chicago. That time frame included several days off in San Jose before the series began. The team was in Chicago for Games 3 and 4 of the series from May 19, 2010 until May 23, 2010. The series ended after Game 4 on May 23, 2010, and the team stayed in Chicago to await the start of the Stanley Cup Final.

The first time that any member of the Blackhawks organization was made aware of the incident was when the victim told skating coach Paul Vincent about it in San Jose. Vincent said that he would take it to the proper people to handle it. Vincent told mental coach Jim Gary and United Center security guard Brian Higgins about the incident. Those conversations presumably occurred in Chicago between May 19, 2010 and May 23, 2010.

A quick explanation of the aliases used for two witnesses that chose to remain anonymous in the report is necessary here. Another player that was called up to practice with the Blackhawks during the 2010 playoff run was interviewed and is referred to as “Black Ace 1” in the report. An employee of the Blackhawks that was close with Black Ace 1 at the time is referred to as “Employee A”.

Employee A learned of the incident through a conversation with Black Ace 1 in Chicago after the team had returned from San Jose. The report states that Employee A went into MacIsaac’s office to tell him about the incident on March 23, 2010. That was the day of Game 4 of the series. MacIsaac recalled asking Gary to reach out to the victim to get more information about what had happened.

Gary and the victim had a private conversation about the incident later that day. The report says that this conversation took place in the middle of Game 3 or Game 4, but the information provided in the report leads me to believe that the conversation took place during Game 4 on May 23, 2010. Gary went back to MacIsaac after that conversation to tell him what he had found out, and MacIsaac called a meeting with Blackhawks management to discuss the matter.

The people in that meeting were MacIsaac, Gary, Bowman, Quenneville, then-Assistant General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, then-Senior Vice President Jay Blunk, and then-President John McDonough. Each person had a different account of what was said in that meeting.

Gary informed the meeting participants about the situation. The report states that Gary’s recollection of what he shared with the group was that the victim was pressured for sex, that the victim said that he wasn’t “into that”, and that the victim received a physical threat. That is obviously only a fraction of what happened during the incident. Upon the group starting to discuss their next steps to handle the situation, Gary asked if he was needed anymore and he was told that he was not needed. Gary also asked to be updated on the team’s intended course of action on the way out the door so he could relay the information to the victim, and he was told that “someone would get back to him.”

Bowman was the only other person in that meeting that could give a clear statement on what was said in the meeting. The report states that Bowman said that “…the situation did not strike him as immediately alarming at the time as the allegation did not involve a sexual assault as having occurred” as described to him. Even if Bowman was only privy to the information that Gary shared in the previous paragraph, Bowman’s interpretation of the information was wrong.

The report states that Bowman recalled a discussion about the need to find out more about what happened. Bowman also recalled Quenneville saying that it was hard for the team to get where they were and that they could not deal with the issue at that time. Bowman also recalled McDonough saying that the team might not make it that far in the playoffs again and that they needed to think about when to handle the issue. Bowman claimed that he asked McDonough what he wanted to do about the situation, and McDonough said to leave it to him. Bowman claimed that he believed that the issue was in McDonough’s hands after that meeting.

McDonagh, MacIsaac, Blunk, Cheveldayoff, and Quenneville were unable to provide clear assessments about what was said in the meeting. McDonough denied any conversation about who was going to handle the situation and when they would handle it.

The then-Director of Human Resources for the Blackhawks stated that McDonough called her into his office on June 14, 2010. That was five days after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. The Director of Human Resources said that McDonough told her about the incident that he had learned about a few weeks prior. She also said that McDonough told her that the group involved in the May 23, 2010 meeting decided not to tell anyone or do anything about it until after the playoffs were over so as to “not disturb team chemistry”.

Those are the facts as outlined in the Jenner & Block report. I will also add that the report states that no reference letters were given to any future employers of the perpetrator. Members of the Blackhawks management group were accused of giving the perptrator letters of reference for future jobs in a second lawsuit aside from the lawsuit pertaining to this incident. The perpetrator received multiple jobs and did commit another act of sexual assault after 2010.

McDonough told the Director of Human Resources that it was a group decision to handle the situation after the 2010 playoffs. Bowman said that he believed that McDonough was going to handle the situation after the May 23, 2010 meeting. There are conflicting statements there. I personally believe that McDonough had more to lose by not being transparent, and I believe that he likely twisted the truth a little bit when talking to the Director of Human Resources on June 14, 2010. The majority of my ire towards the Blackhawks organization about the way that the issue was handled is directed at McDonough.

The accounts of everyone in that meeting are different, so there’s no way to know exactly what was said. That makes everyone in that room guilty by association. While that’s true, I also understand Bowman’s position. He was a first year GM, and it was his belief that the President of the team told him that he would handle the situation. The expectation that he was supposed to go behind the team President’s back and handle the situation himself is unrealistic in my opinion. Many people will say that’s exactly what he should’ve done, but I highly doubt that anyone would actually take that course of action if they found themselves in the same situation.

I’m not trying to fully defend Bowman here. Bowman’s interpretation of the information that was presented to him as not being an incident of sexual assault was wrong. As I said before, we don’t have concrete evidence about what was said in that meeting. Bowman could also have been lying, but we don’t know that to be the case definitively. It’s clear that there was not a lot of energy placed into convincing McDonough that something needed to be done immediately, which was an error from everyone in that meeting. I believe that McDonough was more at fault than anyone though.

I’ll move on to part two where I analyze Bowman’s body of work as GM of the Blackhawks.