(670 The Score) They can't wait to hurry up and tell you that everything is different and just fine now, because the Blackhawks have finally been shamed into so many firings of various authorities a decade after their unconscionable derelictions of duty.
A misguided press release Wednesday in fact was so tone deaf as to already avow their "commitment to winning championships" one breath after a nominal apology to former player Kyle Beach for turning a blind eye to his sexual assault at the hands of video coach Brad Aldrich in 2010, as if that inexorable commitment wasn't the essence of the entire moral rot in the first place.
And if this cosmetic effort indeed involves removing people from positions of power who have forfeited their right to hold them, team captain Jonathan Toews has to be next. He has been in that role since July 2008, when he became the third-youngest in NHL history so entrusted, and has been afforded commensurate credit for his leadership of three champions in an era of unprecedented on-ice glory.
He burned through all that capital and any remaining foundation for his status Wednesday night, however, shockingly taking the wrong side of history amid the embarrassing fallout that will leave the franchise under a dark cloud for the foreseeable future.
Toews didn't deny knowing about what happened to Beach back then and even started to express what sounded like remorse for not speaking up against it, before reverting to an archetype of obtuse hockey culture. It was an immensely disappointing public turn for Toews, one that eroded so much goodwill and respect that had been accrued for so long.
He dismissed the lack of action against Aldrich passively, as "the way it was dealt with," and described it at the time as "water under the bridge" -- all while the bench and locker room ostensibly under his purview were rife with further verbal and emotional abuse of Beach. What's more, Toews unwittingly made the specific case against the team's top-down myopia.
"When you're chasing your dream of the Stanley Cup it becomes the only thing," he said. "They say winning is everything. It just consumes your whole world."
And even if one leans toward wanting to make excuses for the then-22-year-old whose sense of right and wrong was somehow disabled by "One Goal," the now-33-year-old set fire to any of those notions in short order by going to bat for his disgraced former bosses, Stan Bowman and Al MacIsaac, a pair of executives who resigned Tuesday in conjunction with the findings of an investigation being released.
"Regardless of the mistakes that may have been made, for someone like Stan who has done so much for the Blackhawks, and Al as well, to lose everything they care about and their livelihoods as well -- I don't understand how that makes it go away -- just delete them from existence and that's it, we'll never hear from them," Toews said. "So I have a lot of respect for them as people."
"They're good people."
No, they're not. And one can't blithely wave transgressions away with "regardless of the mistakes" that "may" have been made. They were very much made and regarded proportionately for what they were. And it was even worse, still.
"Make any argument you want, they were not directly complicit in the activities that happened," Toews said. "It's not up to me to comment on whether they would like to deal with it differently or not. I just know them as people and I've had a relationship and friendship with them for a long time as being part of the Blackhawks family."
This, folks, is the Joe Paterno playbook at work with Toews in the role of the typically twisted Penn State cultist. It's the same willful misunderstanding of responsibility and complicity, driven by a need to cling to long-held beliefs in human character that can't handle being shattered so completely. It's not just a bad look for Toews and the franchise but also a blatant insult to Beach himself, John Doe 2 and any other unknown victim at the hands of Aldrich.
A genuine leader understands all this and expresses his own profound disappointment in the failures of those he once held in higher regard, while owning unequivocally his specific role in failing to see what was happening on his watch. A positive representative of players doesn't weasel away from confrontation then or now, let alone sing the praises of those who decided not to care that Beach had been assaulted, nor care that they then actively helped send Aldrich elsewhere to prey on a high-schooler.
It's all awful. And if Toews can't or won't understand so and act accordingly, he has effectively abdicated the responsibilities implicit to an NHL team captain.
So strip that "C."
If it's left there, know for what it really stands: complicit, corrupt, compromised.
Or coward.
Dan Bernstein is the co-host of the Bernstein & Rahimi Show on middays from 9 a.m. until noon on 670 The Score. You can follow him on Twitter @Dan_Bernstein.