The NHL Constitution only gives the commissioner power to take away draft picks for transgressions affecting the competitive aspects of the game. As terrible as Chicago’s handling of the Aldrich situation was, in my opinion it would have been a difficult legal argument for the League to make that not reporting possible issues with the video coach to HR immediately to avoid internal distractions affected competitive advantage. If we used that principle then any misdeed a team commits during the playing season could be considered as affecting competitive aspects of the game—which I don’t believe is the spirit of the Constitutional limitation of Commissioner power.
A good question is why doesn’t the NHL Constitution grant the commissioner power to fine teams draft picks for all transgressions? Not solely for transgressions judged to affect competitive aspects of the NHL?
To put it simply - the owners, a bunch of super rich people who only want to be accountable to each other with respect to the fairness of their association
for them. They don't care about fairness for lowly employees, or contractors.
I have no doubt that these owners see significant risk wrt the performance and value of their franchises if they were to hold each other accountable for creating workplaces that value basic human decency. My question isn't, 'Are there any other instances of organizations covering up sexual harassment or assault? No, I'm certain there is. What I'd like to know is, 'How many organizations, and how many instances?'
This is one reason I wouldn't say Chicago is getting preferential treatment. Would anybody be surprised if Ottawa had skeletons of the sort in their past? Come on, there's smoke there as it is. Chicago isn't being punished because the owners drew a line, realizing that the league (their association) has more to lose by investigating, and punishing sexual harassment and assault than it has to gain.
And I realize a lot of my countrymen don't like this way of thinking, but here it is: that's one thing government is for. The owners should be taken to task by government. Of course, governments aren't very functional these days.
