AHL boss waiting for Aliu ‘firestorm’ smoke to clear
Players vulnerable as they try to launch NHL careers
Days later, David Andrews is feeling helpless.
He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what he should do. Doesn’t know what — if anything — he can do.
As the president and CEO of the American Hockey League, Andrews is embarrassed that a head coach under his supposed watch made racial comments to a player back in 2009-10. But he’s more embarrassed the incident went undetected for 10 long years.
During that time, Akim Aliu’s once-promising NHL career has gone off the rails. Bill Peters, meanwhile, has gone on to coach for three different NHL teams as well as internationally for Team Canada.
Had Andrews been aware of what was going on at the time, would the opposite have occurred? Perhaps. And yet, looking forward, Andrews is at a loss in preventing something similar from happening again unless someone — whether it’s the player, a teammate or another coach — comes forward and says something.
“I don’t know what we could have done,” Andrews said in a phone interview to Postmedia News on Thursday. “I think this is a one-off. I don’t think this sort of behaviour is common in our league. I meet with the reps annually at the end of the season behind closed doors. In 25 years of listening to concerns, there’s never been one mention of this level.”
Andrews hasn’t spoken with Aliu, Peters or members of the Rockford Icehogs, where the incident occurred a decade ago. Part of him is waiting for the Calgary Flames, where Peters is still employed, to conduct its own investigation.
The other part of him simply doesn’t know what to say.
“No question it’s a firestorm,” said Andrews. “Us entering into the fray isn’t going to make it better. Like any of these major issues, in my experience, we need the smoke to clear before we tackle what we need to do operationally and strategically.”
Even then, there is only so much Andrews can change.
There is a reason why Peters was comfortable in saying what he said to Aliu and why Aliu and his teammates kept silent for so long. It’s mostly because of the environment they were all in.
The AHL is not the NHL. Due to their salaries, contracts and professional status, NHL players often yield more power than their coaches or even general managers. The AHL, however, is a feeder league filled with players who are trying to get their careers off the ground and thus are willing to do whatever it takes to reach that next level.
Because of that, it’s a league where players are vulnerable.
Peters is also under fire these days for another incident of physical abuse, involving Michal Jordan, which occurred when he was coaching the Carolina Hurricanes. The difference is when that alleged incident occurred, both players and assistant coaches went to management with their concerns and it was dealt with promptly.
Had Aliu come forward, the fear was he might have been labelled as a problem child and had his path to the NHL blocked. An element of this is true, with Aliu alleging that Peters recommended he be demoted to the ECHL after voicing his concerns with his then-coach.
The same is true of the Canadian Hockey League, where players are even younger and less established. David Branch, who is the president of the CHL and the commissioner of the Ontario Hockey League, said one way around this is to ensure the dressing room is not only a safe place for players, but also a transparent place for all involved.
In other words, that old mantra of “what happens in the room stays in this room” has become as antiquated as wooden hockey sticks.
That’s the one good thing that can come out of this incident. It took guts for Aliu and Jordan to speak out. The more players who do so, the chances of a similar incident occurring become even more rare.