UPDATE: John Doe Has Come Forward and Revealed Himself

Huge development in the Chicago Blackhawks scandal that I wrote about earlier today. If you have not read the full story yet, you can catch up on it here. The player that the scandal centered around was referred to throughout the report as John Doe and he has come forward and revealed himself as Blackhawks 2008 first-round pick, Kyle Beach. Kyle Beach revealed himself in an emotional interview with TSN about an hour ago. I haven’t watched the full interview yet, but I’m interested to see if he says that he revealed himself because he felt like it was going to come out anyways. I say this because as I was going through the document yesterday, there was 2 things that stuck out to me that I opted to leave out of my blog this morning.

In the report it is made known that John Doe was 20 years old when the incident occurred. The thing that really caught my attention though was this quote from John McDonough, “When interviewed, McDonough made the same comment, adding that it was hard for him to imagine that a non-consensual sexual encounter occurred between John Doe, who McDonough believed to be 6’3” and 230 lb. in 2010, and Aldrich, who McDonough believed to be 5’6” and 130 lb. in 2010.” Once again, John McDonough with an all-time terrible answer and example of how little he knows about sexual assault victims and how to handle these situations.

The reason I did not include this in my original blog was because I thought it shouldn’t have been included in the report. Sure that quote may be important, but his actual measurements could have been redacted. By filing as John Doe it can be assumed that Beach wanted to remain anonymous and with the way the internet works nowadays you had to assume internet sleuths would run with this information to try to pin down who it was. Now that we know it is Kyle Beach who is referred to as John Doe in the report I decided to go check to see if his identity could have been revealed without him doing so.

A quick search of the 2009-10 Rockford Ice Hogs roster shows that in May of 2010, when the incident occurred, there were 3 players who would have been 20 years old: Kyle Beach, Shawn Lalonde, and Ryan Stanton. Kyle Beach is listed at 6’3″ and 210 lbs. Shawn Lalonde is listed at 6’1″ and 195 lbs. Ryan Stanton is listed at 6’2″ and 205 lbs. Based on McDonough’s size description you could probably eliminate Lalonde from that group and you could’ve assumed that John Doe was either Kyle Beach or Ryan Stanton. The size description is closer to Beach’s size so you probably could’ve assumed it was him, but if that wasn’t enough you could also look at the fact that John Doe says this event derailed his career. Kyle Beach is widely considered a bust in the NHL, having never played an NHL game (makes a lot of sense now seeing as this incident effected his playing career because this was during the height of the Blackhawks powers when they were not striking out on draft picks). While Ryan Stanton isn’t exactly a household name, he has played in 120 NHL games split between the Chicago Blackhawks, Vancouver Canucks, and Washington Capitals. He is also currently on the Rockford IceHogs 2021-22 roster and has appeared in 4 games this year. It would be hard to imagine that someone who has an outstanding lawsuit out against an organization would then sign with that same organization that wronged him years ago.

With all this knowledge I am interested to see if Kyle Beach was actually ready to reveal his identity or if he read the report and knew that it would come out in the coming days. Again, I haven’t watched the full interview, but from what I’ve read it sounds like he has a sense of relief that this is all out there now. It’s something that has been weighing on him for a long time and as I said in my original blog, maybe now he can put this chapter of his life in the rearview mirror and move on with his life.

It does seem that according to this interview with TSN, Joel Quenneville knew more than he was letting on in his interview for Jenner & Block’s report. Joel is scheduled to meet with Commissioner Bettman on Thursday so I guess we may know in another 24 hours or so if another domino will fall. As I said in the original blog, Joel seems like a good person at heart, but if he knew everything and never bothered to tell anyone or follow up with his superiors after they said they would handle the situation, then he is equally guilty as them and should face the same punishment. The old adage goes that “The right thing to do isn’t always the easiest thing to do.”

Stick taps for Kyle Beach