RALEIGH, N.C. — It appears former Blackhawks executive Kevin Cheveldayoff will remain general manager of the Jets moving forward despite his slight involvement in the Hawks’ sexual assault cover-up.
Cheveldayoff was a Hawks assistant GM and the lowest-ranking front-office member present at the May 2010 meeting where then-president John McDonough, then-GM Stan Bowman and then-coach Joel Quenneville, among others, decided not to take immediate action regarding then-video coach Brad Aldrich’s alleged assault of then-player Kyle Beach, an investigation found.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, one day after meeting with Quenneville and forcing him out of his Panthers coaching position, met Friday with Cheveldayoff and cleared him of any league discipline.
“While on some level, it would be easiest to paint everyone with any association to this terrible matter with the same broad brush, I believe that fundamental fairness requires a more in-depth analysis of the role of each person,” Bettman said in a statement. “Kevin Cheveldayoff was not a member of the Blackhawks senior leadership team in 2010, and I cannot, therefore, assign to him responsibility for the club’s actions, or inactions.”
The NHL determined Cheveldayoff was “essentially an observer” in the meeting and left it “believing that the matter was going to be investigated.” His AGM role “not only left him without authority” to make a decision on Aldrich but also without a way to access “sufficient information...whether or not the matter was being adequately addressed.”
Cheveldayoff, the Jets’ GM since 2011, will apparently be the only person present at the aforementioned meeting allowed to keep working in the NHL.
