Top NHL analyst expresses disgust over Oilers' decision to appoint Stan Bowman as new GM

By Evan Bell

Modified Jul 24, 2024 16:45 GMT

On Wednesday, Stan Bowman was hired as the new general manager of the Edmonton Oilers, marking his return to the league after being implicated in the Kyle Beach scandal. Beach had accused former Blackhawks video coach Brad Aldrige of sexual assault in 2010, and investigations in 2021 found that the Blackhawks mishandled the allegations, leading to Bowman stepping down.

Although Bowman was never formally suspended by the NHL, his role in the scandal has resulted in plenty of criticism. Mark Lazerus of The Athletic took aim at the Oilers for hiring Bowman just two weeks after the NHL decided to reinstate him, Joel Quenneville (former Chicago head coach) and Al MacIssac, who also worked for Blackhawks management.

Leading up to a scheduled press conference later today, where Stan Bowman will join Edmonton CEO Jeff Jackson to speak with the media, Lazerus criticized the move in a series of tweets:

"I'm genuinely glad that Stan Bowman has put in the work to learn, to understand, to grow, and to help others handle future situations properly. Truly. But we can't forget that these men's craven failure led directly to the sexual abuse of a minor. You don't HAVE to hire them."

"I would have been glad to see Stan Bowman continue to work with someone like Sheldon Kennedy, to carve out a new path in the hockey world as an educator, as an example. Instead, he walks right back into an NHL GM job 14 days after reinstatement. This league, man."

As he further explained, with Bowman now at the helm in Edmonton, two NHL GMs, Bowman and Keven Cheveldayoff, were aware of Beach's allegations and failed to act accordingly.

How Stan Bowman has worked to learn from his mistakes

While many have criticized the Oilers organization for hiring Bowman, Sheldon Kennedy (referenced by Lazerus in his aforementioned tweets) wrote Stan Bowman a glowing endorsement letter, relayed by The Athletic. Kennedy is the co-founder of Respect Group, a company that works to eradicate bullying, harassment and discrimination in sports and places of business.

When Stan Bowman resigned from his position with the Blackhawks in 2021, he, Quenneville and MacIssac all reached out to Kennedy. Since then, Bowman has gone above and beyond, spending a full-time job's worth of hours working with other teams, according to Kennedy.

Specifically, Stan Bowman held a workshop for three WHL (Western Hockey League) teams, using himself as an example of what not to do and teaching them how to handle similar situations better.

“I was immediately struck by Stan’s genuine care and concern for Kyle, and what could have been done differently," Kennedy wrote. "During that period, we spoke almost daily about the seriousness of sexual abuse from the victim’s perspective.

"We didn’t talk about hockey at all. We focused on what went wrong, what he could have done differently and, most importantly, what could be done to prevent this from happening again.”

Of course, others, like Lazerus, believe that despite Bowman's efforts to grow as a person, the handling of the situation by him and the Blackhawks led to further harm. Specifically, another unnamed individual, a high school hockey player, was sexually assaulted by Aldrich several years after he assaulted Kyle Beach, as per Bleacher Report.

Had Bowman and the Blackhawks handled the accusations properly, the scandal would have surfaced following the Blackhawks' Stanley Cup win in 2010 rather than in 2021.