The best captains in hockey history

[Albatros]

 

[JackSlater]

The way I’ve interpreted the chain of events, is that players including Sopel and Boynton hear about the assault from one of the black aces, prior to game 1 of the Conference Finals. Nick Boynton confronts skill coach Paul Vincent, who has a police background, with the allegations and he talks with two named victims of Aldrich’s for further information. He then turns what he knows over to their sports psychologist and the director of security, and is eventually called up by management who ensures him the matter is being taken care of and that he doesn’t need to investigate it further.

For sure, what we can say with certainty is that management handled it disgracefully.

It is less certain exactly which players on the team knew what during the playoffs, but according to Boynton:



Boynton did however name black ace Jake Dowell as his initial source of information, who disputes the claim ‘everybody knew’:



I can’t claim with any certainty that Toews lied about not hearing why Aldrich was let go during the playoffs, and did so prior to the next training camp as he’s stated. It’s harder to believe Kane or Keith saying they remained oblivious until the investigations became public or whatever. It might all be a case of players hearing different rumors and accounts at different points, “Aldrich was let go because he’s a creep”, “Aldrich tried to get into guys’ pants”, and not truly knowing what to make of it. And of course, if they did try to ‘do the right thing’, management — their bosses — says it’s been taken care of.

Ultimately, I don’t think the locker room in which Kyle Beach were taunted about missing his girlfriend reflects well on Toews leadership, but no one can say that’s something he understood or would have tolerated if made aware. I think it’s very plausible that could have been almost any locker room in the NHL at the time, and the good coming out of the entire ordeal is that it raised awareness and hopefully sparked some initiative for improving culture, handling similar situations, and protecting kids in the future.

That's pretty much fair. More reasonable that what often becomes hysteria when it comes to Toews. Beach possibly being taunted at practice or pre-season (I thought that this was something that came up post-2010 with Beach, could be wrong) would be the primary negative on Toews, particularly if it was widespread. Anyway, good post o the matter.

 

[The Panther]

Your argument to not excluding Towes from a greatest captains list because of the Beach situation is that...we don't know if there could possibly be things out there somewhere that other captains were aware of?

"We just don't know." Yeah, sure, fine. So let's put them all in the bucket with Toews and give Jonathan a pat on the back, because maybe somewhere there's an event that some other captain knew about?

Actually I didn't say anything about Toews being a great captain or not. I have no opinion on that.

If Toews knew what was going on and did nothing. then certainly it reflect poorly on him in all ways. And if he knew, then almost certainly many Blackhawk players knew, so it reflects poorly on all of them. (This, to me, raises another issue, which is if 21 year olds should be captains of pro-sports teams, but that's another matter.)

Toews himself says he didn't know what was going on. That doesn't stretch credibility to me, so i'm basically inclined to believe him unless further evidence comes to light.

I think we can all agree, however, that the Blackhawks' organization handled it disastrously.

Getting back to the point i actually was making: As in my first post in this thread, I think that none of us really knows what goes on with team captains. We might think we do, but we don't. So, as great as many captains in this thread probably were, it's quite possible that some of them were aware of similarly sketchy things going on, but let it go or turned a blind eye.

As another poster said, the important thing to come out of the Beach situation is that it furthered changes in hockey culture that were overdue.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Getting back to the point i actually was making: As in my first post in this thread, I think that none of us really knows what goes on with team captains. We might think we do, but we don't. So, as great as many captains in this thread probably were, it's quite possible that some of them were aware of similarly sketchy things going on, but let it go or turned a blind eye.

I guess thanks for repeating it, because that’s what I found offensive about your argument (and that’s what I responded to). Thanks for confirming.

 

[hockey webcomics]

 

[The Panther]

I guess thanks for repeating it, because that’s what I found offensive about your argument (and that’s what I responded to). Thanks for confirming.

You're being silly.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

We’re always bound to infer a bunch of shit discussing leadership. What do we like to see, what don’t we like to see, what are the opinions of others, of course we don’t really know.

Captain Crunch replaced virtually all his offensive flair with stifling, punishing defense which earned him three Cup rings, that’s great. He also served as the lookout for three teammates having their way with a teenaged girl in a limo. That’s all kinds of messed up, but admittedly very team-first. I’ll always want to qualify any statement praising his leadership, with what I liked and what I’d like to do without.

 

[57special]

Beliveau was the ultimate Captain. My mother met him at a party in the early 80's, and swooned. He was very gracious, and charming, and didn't mind wiping my mother's drool off his suitjacket.

Bobby Clarke, for all I despised the 70's Flyers, was emblematic of the team, and would probably be 2nd in my mind.

 

[gretzkyoilers]