Following their second-round victory over the Vancouver Canucks in May 2010, the Blackhawks flew straight to San Jose for the Western Conference finals rather than return home to Chicago. They spent a full week in San Jose, with four off days before the series began.
It was then, at the team hotel and local bars, that word spread among the players that two teammates had accused video coach Brad Aldrich of sexual assault, alleging that he got them drunk and tried to perform oral sex on them.
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“Every guy on the team knew about it,” one player on the 2010 team told The Athletic. “Every single guy on the team knew.”
Last month, a former player filed a lawsuit against the Blackhawks alleging that he and a teammate were sexually assaulted by Aldrich, and that the team ignored their claims. Earlier this month, TSN reported that the two players reported Aldrich’s conduct to skills coach Paul Vincent just before the start of the Western Conference finals, and that Vincent brought it to team president John McDonough, general manager Stan Bowman, vice president of hockey operations Al MacIsaac and mental-skills coach James Gary. According to TSN’s report, Vincent told the leadership group they needed to file a report with Chicago Police, a plea that was reportedly refused. (The Athletic independently confirmed the account with Vincent, who declined to say more because of pending litigation.)
After leaving the Blackhawks following the 2010 season (the team has declined to say why he left; Aldrich told confidants he was sick of the NHL grind), Aldrich joined the coaching staff of a boys high school team in Houghton, Mich. In December 2013, after his second stint as a volunteer assistant coach there, he pleaded guilty to charges of criminal sexual conduct with a teenager. Aldrich was sentenced to nine months in a Houghton County jail. A second lawsuit was filed last month by Aldrich’s victim in Houghton, alleging that the Blackhawks gave Aldrich “positive references” when he left the team and failed to report the allegations of abuse from 2010.
Aldrich, now 38, also abruptly left a position at Miami (Ohio) University in 2012 after only about four months working with its hockey program. The school is now investigating Aldrich’s time there.
Another player on that 2010 Chicago team, Nick Boynton, said Vincent made it clear to players during the San Jose series that he would alert upper management about the allegations. Boynton said players trusted that Vincent would handle the matter appropriately given his background — he was previously in law enforcement — and Boynton believes Vincent’s account that he told his superiors that they needed to go to police. “I trust (Vincent) over the front office,” Boynton said. “He’s a stand-up guy.”
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But in San Jose, the players watched as Aldrich continued his duties as video coach, for the two games in San Jose, the two back in Chicago, and the six games of the Stanley Cup Final.
Then, Aldrich posed with the team on the ice in the giddy moments following the Cup-clinching overtime victory in Game 6 on June 9, a championship hat on his head and a broad smile on his face. Two days later, the Blackhawks gathered for pictures at the United Center before the parade up Michigan Avenue.
Aldrich was there.
The former player who spoke with The Athletic, who was not one of the two players who disclosed Aldrich’s alleged assault to Vincent, said he recently Googled the official team photo from the morning of the parade, and sure enough, Aldrich is in it.
“That doesn’t bother me, that they let him take pictures with the Cup,” the 2010 Blackhawks player said. “What bothers me is they fired him, but they didn’t take it to the cops. … They let him get a job with a U-18 team. They let him go work with minors. They let this happen.”
When Aldrich joined the coaching staff as a volunteer at Houghton High School in Michigan during the 2010-11 season, it seemed like a massive — and eyebrow-raising — step down. The explanation was that Aldrich was tired of traveling. Aldrich provided no letters of recommendation and the school didn’t perform a background check, according to a source at Houghton Portage Township Schools.
Aldrich’s first stint at Houghton was incident-free: “The kids loved him,” the source said.
In July 2012, Aldrich heard about an opening with Miami (Ohio) University’s men’s hockey team and applied, again telling people with that program that he left the Blackhawks because he felt burned out by the NHL commitment.
Aldrich worked as a video coach during Miami’s game against Michigan State on Saturday, Nov. 17. Two days later, the team was notified that he was no longer with the program, according to a university source. No details about why he departed were provided to team members.
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In response to inquiries from The Athletic, a school spokesperson said: “Miami University is aware of allegations of improper conduct by former employee Bradley Aldrich. University employees undergo a background verification, which includes a criminal records check, as part of the hiring process. Mr. Aldrich was employed by Miami University from July 2012 to November 2012, when he resigned. The university has hired the national law firm of Barnes & Thornburg LLP to conduct an independent and thorough review of Mr. Aldrich’s employment at Miami.”
Miami’s head coach at the time, Rico Blasi, said the university’s legal department handled the situation regarding Aldrich’s employment and that he did not have any additional information regarding Aldrich’s departure. A university spokesperson did not respond to a question about if the school notified any of Aldrich’s subsequent employers about the terms of his departure.
For the 2012-13 season, Aldrich rejoined the Houghton program, again as a volunteer. “We had no hint of inappropriateness (at his previous jobs),” the Houghton source said. “Even if we did background checks, there was nothing from the Blackhawks that would have saved (the player.)”
(Houghton Portage Township Schools now does background checks on volunteers).
The high school player from Houghton, identified in a second lawsuit against the Chicago Blackhawks as John Doe 2, said that Aldrich sexually assaulted him at an end-of-season gathering for players in March 2013. According to the complaint, Aldrich provided alcohol to the player, who was 16 at the time, and “performed oral sex on him without his consent.”
In December 2013, Aldrich pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct with a student between the ages of 16 to 18 years old. He was sentenced in February 2014 to nine months in county jail, and five years of probation.
The second lawsuit against the Blackhawks, filed last month in Cook County Circuit Court, alleges that the NHL club failed to properly respond and investigate allegations of sexual assault against Aldrich, subsequently provided “positive references to future employers for (Aldrich) as a hockey coach despite having knowledge of his sexual assault” and “failed to report (Aldrich) to any hockey or coaching organizations of oversight.”
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Asked whether the NHL is investigating the allegations against the Blackhawks, deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Athletic via email: “We have been in contact with the Club regarding the matter but there is no ongoing investigation. We do not have any further comment at this time.”
Daly did not respond when asked in a follow-up email what would prompt an investigation into the matter.
Since the allegations have surfaced, people in communities in which Aldrich coached have begun discussing his behavior, seeing warning signs they missed earlier. Among them:
- One NHL staff member said he received sexually inappropriate/suggestive text messages from Aldrich in 2010 while he was working for the Blackhawks.
- Three Notre Dame players during Aldrich’s time at the university said that Aldrich (then in his mid-20s) would frequently fraternize with players, trying to blend in as a contemporary. At least one of those players said he expressed his discomfort to teammates with Aldrich’s presence at social gatherings: “I felt he just tried to get too close to the players.” From a Notre Dame spokesperson: “Aldrich was employed in the video unit of hockey operations from 2006-08 and at the University’s Compton Family Ice Arena in 2011-12. There is no record of complaints against Aldrich while he was at Notre Dame, or thereafter based on his employment here.”
- One former player for the midget program in Marquette where Aldrich was an assistant coach before going to Notre Dame, said he was warned that Aldrich tried to develop close relationships with the teenage players that made some players uncomfortable; that warning came from a player who played for Aldrich the previous season in 2004-05.
- That same player said that Aldrich would invite players to his apartment for “mac and cheese parties” on Wednesday nights to eat dinner and watch hockey. A different player who attended one of those events said nothing illicit occurred the night he went to Aldrich’s apartment, but looking back, he said it was inappropriate for players to even be there.
- The player who was warned about Aldrich said Aldrich texted him and others on multiple occasions to find out where the players were partying on weekends, doing so even after he moved on to coach the local bantam program (ages 14 and under). “He always wanted to be your best buddy,” said the player. “He’d be calling when you were out trying to find out where you were hanging out.”
- At least one person affiliated with the bantam program where Aldrich coached said he saw Aldrich hanging out socially with the bantam players – outside of a practice or game setting. That person now views that scenario in a different light, particularly regarding healthy coach and player boundaries. Multiple people recalled Aldrich leaving in the middle of the season.
The person connected with the bantam program echoed others who interacted with Aldrich over the years when he said: “It was just a sense of impropriety (with Aldrich), an uneasiness.”
The former Blackhawks player who spoke to The Athletic recalled the last time he saw Aldrich. After the formal picture on the ice, the players went outside the United Center, where buses waited in a parking lot to take them to the parade route along Michigan Avenue.
“We got on the bus, then he was gone, and we never heard from him again,” the player said.
The Blackhawks did not respond to a request for comment.
Aldrich is a registered sex offender in Michigan. A source said he is still seen around the Houghton community. Reached by phone on Thursday, he responded to six questions with “no comment.”
His name remains on the Stanley Cup.
(Top photo: John Leyba / Getty Images)