Former player has high praise for Dyck
Lawsuit suggests Giants’ current coach encouraged fighting, allowed hazing while in Lethbridge
Consider Kyle Beach a Michael Dyck supporter.
Beach is a 30-year-old from Kelowna, a 2008 Chicago Blackhawks’ first-round draft pick who has played pro in Europe for the past six seasons.
In 2008-09, at the age of 18, Beach was a midseason addition by the Lethbridge Hurricanes, the winger acquired in a deal with the Everett Silvertips at the January WHL trade deadline.
Dyck, head coach of the Vancouver Giants for the past two seasons, was guiding the WHL rival Hurricanes then.
“Not only did Mike Dyck make me a better hockey player, but he also made me a better person and I was only with him for those four months. He’s one of those coaches that I remember very, very fondly,” Beach says.
Garrett Taylor was a 17-year-old rookie winger for those Hurricanes. Taylor, now 29, and former junior hockey player Dan Carcillo have filed a class-action lawsuit with the Ontario Superior Court Justice against the Canadian Hockey League and its 60 teams that make up the WHL, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and Ontario Hockey League.
The suit alleges that major junior hockey has been “plagued by rampant hazing, bullying and abuse of underage players by coaches, team staff and senior players,” and that the defendants have “stubbornly ignored or failed to reasonably address,” those issues.
Dyck isn’t a defendant. His name doesn’t appear in the statement of claim. There are references to the Lethbridge head coach from the 2008-09 season, though.
The statement of claim says: “During team practices, the head coach took Taylor aside and demanded that he fight other 16-or 17-year-old players in order to increase the ‘intensity’ level of the team. This took place numerous times.
“Taylor was seriously concussed during one fight in practice and he and other team members suffered other injuries during such fights.
The head coach provided the team credit card to one of the older players to buy alcohol for the team ‘rookie party.’ The 16- and 17-year-old rookies were required to dress in women’s clothing and were forced to consume large amounts of alcohol, to the point of blacking out and vomiting.”
Beach says he was “not a witness” to such events in his time with Lethbridge and he was one of 26 players from that team who attached their names to a letter published Wednesday by the Lethbridge Herald that states they were “treated with great respect and professionalism,” by the Hurricanes’ coaching staff.
The letter also states that the players “fully support the thorough investigation of all allegations.”
Thirty-five players saw action in at least one game with the Hurricanes that season, according to the WHL website. That includes Cody Smuk and Mitch Fadden, who have both died.
“If this stuff did happen, I’m sad that Garrett didn’t feel he could talk to somebody at the time, because we had a very good leadership group with that team with guys like Ben Wright and Zach Boychuk and Dwight King,” said Beach, who played this past season for DVTK Jegesmedvek,
a Hungarian team that’s in the Slovakian pro league.
“I have nothing to gain here. I’m not going to be a part of the class-action suit. I’ve been asked to attach my name to various things over the years, and I’ve preferred to stay out of it. I just wanted to give my honest opinion here.”
Beach says the team party in question happened before he joined the Hurricanes. He says he attended other team parties later in the season and younger players were not forced to drink and that “there were players who did not drink and that was completely OK.”
As for Dyck demanding Taylor to fight at practice, Beach said, “the only thing I can think of is that was a misunderstanding.”
Beach was among the league leaders in points and penalty minutes during his time in the WHL. In 251 regular-season games, he totalled 134 goals, 273 points and 773 penalty minutes. He recalls a particularly fiery game against the arch rival Medicine Hat Tigers from that season, says that he asked Dyck if he should get into a fight and maintains Dyck told him: “If you ask me to fight again, you’re not going to see another shift from me.”
Beach says he was asked by a coach later on in his career to fight and says “that’s not a coach’s position. He put me in a bad spot.” He declined to name the coach.
Meanwhile, former Carcillo teammates David Pszenyczny and Ryan Munce have corroborated his allegations regarding hazing incidents during the 2002-03 season with the OHL’s Sarnia Sting to Ken Campbell of The Hockey News.
That Sarnia squad was coached by Jeff Perry, who is now an assistant coach with the Mooretown Flags, an Ontario Junior C team.
Beach was the No. 11 selection by Chicago in 2008, one spot after the Vancouver Canucks took Cody Hodgson and one pick before the Buffalo Sabres grabbed Tyler Myers.
The only thing I can think of is that was a misunderstanding.”
Kyle Beach