One week after Chicago Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz requested that the Hockey Hall of Fame remove Bradley Aldrich’s name from the Stanley Cup, the Hall of Fame has blotted out the name of the team’s former video coach from their 2009-10 season. According to a report by Jay Cohen of the Associated Press, the Hall of Fame covered Bradley Aldrich’s name in X’s on Sunday during the process of engraving the names of the 2020-21 Tampa Bay Lightning onto the Cup.
Aldrich’s removal from the Stanley Cup comes after the revelation of his crimes, which included the sexual assault of a Blackhawks player in May of 2010. In July, a lawsuit claimed that Aldrich had forced himself on a “John Doe”, threatening him with physical violence before forcibly touching him and committing “lewd and lascivious” non-consensual sexual acts. In October, “John Doe” revealed himself to be former Blackhawks left wing and 2008 first-round pick Kyle Beach.
Amid the fallout of Beach coming forward, which include claims that the Blackhawks knew of Aldrich’s crimes and did nothing, Wirtz asked for the removal of Aldrich’s name from the Stanley Cup in a letter written to Hall of Fame director Lanny McDonald last week, stating that Aldrich’s conduct disqualifies him from being included on the Cup.
“While nothing can undo what he did, leaving his name on the most prestigious trophy in sports seems profoundly wrong,” wrote Wirtz.
In addition to sexually assaulting Beach, Aldrich also confessed to sexually assaulting a Michigan high school student who was a member of the school’s boy’s hockey team, an offense for which he served nine months in prison. He has also been accused of sexually assaulting two men while working as an assistant coach at Miami (Ohio) University.
