Bowman And The Damage Done
On Edmonton's Enormous Error
I almost got there.
9 days ago, NHL insider Frank Seravalli was doing local Edmonton radio and the conversation about potential GMs came up. Seravalli went on his soapbox (his words) for Stan Bowman, and in the course of the two minute speech I almost bought the idea that Bowman deserves a second chance. And then I remembered what he did. For those not clear on what, precisely, Bowman did to need a second chance, well, it’s not pretty, and if you don’t want to read about some harrowing shit you’re probably best leaving here.
Stan Bowman was the GM of the Chicago Blackhawks team that employed a sexual predator who attacked a Blackhawks prospect who was with the team for the 2010 playoffs. There was a meeting with Bowman, Coach Joel Quenneville, and others where it was decided that the nature of a playoff run made it preferable to cover it up. The Blackhawks then gave the perpetrator a positive job recommendation and he ended up committing another attack.
Now, Sheldon Kennedy wrote an open letter talking up Bowman’s work in the time since he was let go in Chicago and banned from the NHL, and as Seravalli says, there’s a broader conversation about how rehabilitation should work, how second chances are metered out, and who gets our forgiveness and who doesn’t that society at large needs to have. That’s the one part of Seravalli’s lecture I wholeheartedly agree with. We need to have it, and Bowman gives me the chance to articulate something that’s been eating at me for a while.
Now, Seravalli’s robust defence of Bowman assumed that the only reason not to hire him was the cover up, which is crap. The Panarin-Saad trade is a fireable offence in and of itself, and the fact that the Blackhawks didn’t make the playoffs in a real season from 2018 until his exit. I have no reason on pure hockey grounds to think this hiring is smart. His last name and the fact that he was the guy who inherited the infrastructure for the 3 Cups in Chicago means he is hockey legend. That pretty much every personnel decision taken since getting swept by Nashville was a fucking nightmare didn’t seem to matter to Edmonton, though it should have. But for the sake of this conversation, let’s accept that he is a hockey God, a legend, some must hire in other circumstances.
The biggest problem every time we say society has to have a conversation about who we forgive and who we don’t, we never bother asking ourselves why we’re looking to forgive these people. And until we accept that who we forgive is just a matter of who we liked originally, we’ll get nowhere.
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Both Patrick Reed and Justin Thomas have used homophobic slurs on the PGA Tour after missing a putt they felt they should have hit. You’ll be shocked to find out that I’m a lot more willing to forgive one of them than the other. I have forgiven JT for his use of the slur at Kapalua because I like JT and I love JT’s close friend Jordan Spieth, so I’m willing to let it slide. There’s no principle at play here. People who like Will Smith’s filmography were a lot more willing to forgive The Slap than those who think Pursuit Of Happyness is one of the worst movies ever and thinks Fresh Prince is crap. We are all hypocrites, myself firmly included.
Acknowledging that hypocrisy is important, because it clarifies the question being asked when we have these seemingly high level conversations about who airquotes “deserves” forgiveness. Does Bowman? Who the fuck knows, because there’s no standard, and more importantly there’s no way to create a fair one. Ask a survivor of domestic violence or sexual violence whether they think their perpetrators deserve anything and the answer they’ll give could well be a lot different than what those luckily never impacted directly by it will say. How do you quantify the damage done by covering up a heinous crime, and how do you deserve what living gets to be made. It’s a cul-de-sac designed to make you throw your arms up and let the person in question back into public life.
Michael Vick suffered greater recrimination for dogfighting than players get for punching their pregnant girlfriends. The lines we make up about who deserves what are all more about our personal comfort than any form of objective truth about the actions done. The honest truth is that many of us outraged about the Stan Bowman hire will still watch opening night and celebrate wildly if Leon Draisaitl signs the contract extension I know I am hoping and praying is coming. And that’s the bet that justifies not holding anybody accountable.
If you think I’m divorcing myself from that I’m not. The fundamental truth is that our willingness to give is endlessly dependent on a thousand factors completely unrelated to the thing they did. If the Oilers come out 14-4-3 and Leon signs that extension while he’s back in North America right now then a lot of this anger will subside. If it’s December 1st, Leon’s unsigned, and the Oilers are fighting for a playoff spot? There’ll be protests outside the arena every day calling for Bowman’s firing. The bet the Oilers made is that the Oilers’ll come out like a house on fire and everything will cool down, which is the exact same bet that leads to every comeback or rehabilitation effort.
The fundamental question in these scenarios isn’t actually whether the person being brought back “deserves” a second chance, it’s whether or not the carrot you’re dangling in front of them is compelling enough to make them break. How many people saw the new Bad Boys movie with Will Smith but didn’t see the failed Apple Oscar-bait Will Smith movie that came out in the fall of 2022? It was a lot easier to ignore Smith when he was putting out something nobody cared about. The Oilers are an institution in Edmonton and they know that they have two top 5 players in the league. They know that people will watch, so they can get away with this because most people will want to watch Connor and Leon put up 8 on Dan Vladar more than they’re mad about how Stan Bowman failed Kyle Beach.
What we need to do is shift the focus of this conversation away from expecting society to bail out the decisions of powerful people and powerful institutions. Stan Bowman isn’t owed a free ride by Hockey Twitter or Oilers fans, and the Oilers aren’t owed submission by the people who pay the outrageous ticket prices. It’s like a very bad version of the Dril tweet - I am actually under no obligation to hand it to Stan Bowman for the work he’s done since exiting hockey. I’m under no obligation to ever let any of this go about anybody. I’m allowed to continue to hate Tyreek Hill and try and find a way to mention he’s scum of the earth at every opportunity. The obligation isn’t on us to go along with the deep immorality at the core of so much of what average, regular people use to survive.
The reason it’s so offensive to hire Bowman or draft Hill as some late sleeper despite his obvious talent is that it is unreasonable to put the burden of handling this on regular people. We can debate till the end of days whether the attachments we create - to athletes, to celebrities, to movies and TV, and anything else - are healthy or not, but it’s true that a lot of people need them. Some of the darkest days of my life have been made better by sports, some descents into darkness reversed through binging crap Aaron Sorkin shows. And that’s the exact reason all of these comebacks and rehabilitations are so deeply cynical. They know so many people want and need what they have, and they know they can do what they want.
Does Stan Bowman deserve a second chance? Fuck if I know, because the deck is stacked. “Heads you cheer for a team run by someone who covered up a sexual assault, tails you lose something you love” isn’t a fair choice, and it’s what Edmonton just made its fans choose. As I said at the top of this, I almost got there on the idea that Bowman deserves a second chance. And then I remembered that it’s not about him, it’s about the people who deserve their love of hockey not to be used to whitewash Bowman’s record.
The Oilers put their fans through hell today, but it’s not about one decision or one franchise. What Bowman or any other person seeking a second chance deserves is secondary.
If we can take anything from today’s disaster, may it be that the focus shift to what obligations the rich and powerful have to the rest of us, and the damage they do to so many when they make us tolerate the intolerable.