I don't know how good a hockey player Kyle Beach is; looking at his career statistics reveals nothing other than he has played a lot of hockey, none of it at the highest level, which would be the National Hockey League that operates in the U.S. and Canada.
By some lights, he would be considered one of the game's biggest busts. Since 1993, he is the highest-drafted hockey player to never play in a single NHL game.
Instead he's played in Independence, Mo., and Salzburg, Austria; in Syria and Bad Tölz, Germany. His current team is the TecArt Black Dragons of Erfurt, Germany. They play in the third-best hockey league in Germany.
Beach was a star in junior hockey, a physical forward, a tough guy, with some puck-handling skills. He was projected to be a top five pick in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, but concerns about injuries--and maybe his on-ice demeanor and off-ice discipline--caused him to slip to the 11th pick, where he was selected by the Chicago Blackhawks.
Two years later, Beach, then 20 years old, joined the Blackhawks roster as a Black Ace, kind of like a September call-up in Major League Baseball. But the NHL doesn't expand its roster like baseball does, so these players are only eligible to play if someone is hurt or suspended and the team has already depleted its available backup players. They rarely see game action.
Still, since the NHL doesn't limit the number of Black Aces each team can add, most playoff teams invite most or all of the roster of their highest farm clubs to be Black Aces. It's an honor, and gives young players the experience of being around the big time.
So while Beach was never officially an NHL player, he got to wear a Blackhawks jersey during its 2009-10 Stanley Cup run. He got to celebrate on the ice with the team when they won.
He didn't get his name engraved on the Stanley Cup. Brad Aldrich did.
Aldrich was the Blackhawks' 27-year-old video coach that season. Which means he was the AV guy, responsible for downloading and editing footage from games and practices into clips for coaches and players to study.
This is important and time-consuming work that undoubtedly contributes to a team's success. And Aldrich was probably good at it; in his final performance evaluation, his head coach wrote that he "did a great job for the coaching staff in preparing us for all of our meetings and coordinating several tasks that we forward his way." Another team official said Aldrich was a good video guy, but that his confidence in his own abilities bordered on obnoxious.
Aldrich was important to the organization, or at least the Black Aces perceived him as such. He could edit tape any number of ways; he could influence other coaches. He could accentuate your highlights. Or, some feared, he could bury your career.
Whether this was true or not doesn't matter. They were kids, most of them a season or two out of junior hockey. So when Aldrich invited them to a pool party or out to dinner, they went. Even if they thought he was a little weird. Even if they thought all his talk about his sexual conquests were overcompensation.
So Beach went back with Aldrich to his condo during the Blackhawks playoff series against the San Jose Sharks in early may 2010. They engaged in sexual acts; Aldrich told investigators the encounter was consensual, Beach contends it was "entirely non-consensual." Beach claims Aldrich told him he would never play in the NHL or "walk again" if he didn't "act like he enjoyed" it.
A few days later, Beach told the Blackhawks' skill coach about the incident. The coach said he would handle it, and Beach believes he relayed his claims to the Blackhawks' front office, who did nothing about Aldrich until after the playoffs.
There was a meeting just before the Stanley Cup finals began in which the teams general manager, president, head coach and others discussed the allegations and determined the best thing to do about Aldrich was nothing, at least not until after the playoffs were over.
They wanted to "avoid bad publicity" as the team drew near its first championship in nearly 50 years. Beach says one of the coaches told him he needed to accept responsibility for the assault because he'd put himself in that situation.
The day after they won the Stanley Cup, Aldrich grabbed a 22-year-old team intern. The intern did not file a formal complaint, but four days later the team's director of human resources was told about Beach's allegations. She summoned Aldrich to her office two days later and offered him the opportunity to resign or face an investigation into Beach's allegations.
He chose to resign. No investigation took place. Aldrich got a severance package, a playoff bonus, and continued to receive his salary for a few months. He was permitted to host the Stanley Cup for a day in his hometown, his name was engraved on the Stanley Cup, and he received a 14-carat white gold championship ring with 404 diamonds and gemstones totaling approximately eight carats, valued at $30,000.
After leaving the Blackhawks, Aldrich went on to positions with USA Hockey, the University of Notre Dame, Miami University in Ohio and a high school in Houghton, Mich., where he served as a volunteer hockey coach.
In 2013, he assaulted a 16-year-old player after a post-game party. He was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a minor. He served nine months in the county jail.
When, in the course of their investigation, the Houghton police called the Blackhawks to ask them about Aldrich, the human resources director refused to release any information without a subpoena. That's probably standard operating procedure. They probably didn't want their former AV guy to sue them.
We should probably say that an independent investigation by law firm Jenner & Block, from whose report we've drawn several details, found no evidence that the ownership of the Blackhawks was aware of the allegations against Aldrich until earlier this year, when Beach filed a lawsuit against the team.
They'd really like to see Aldrich's name buffed off the Stanley Cup. And Kyle Beach probably has a few more years of hockey to play, if he wants to play them.
Maybe he was never good enough to play at the highest level. There's no shame in that, for all the proud talk about heart and desire and determination, we all have limitations we cannot overcome.
But we hear a lot about the mental side of the game, about how important having a "Mamba mentality" or a killer instinct can be to an athlete. And how mental "weakness" damns us to mediocrity.
And we can wonder all day exactly how much was stolen from Kyle Beach.
Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@adgnewsroom.com