TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains details of crimes that are sexual in nature, which can be potentially disturbing to victims.
The Habs’ Stanley Cup Finals loss fallout doesn’t just stop with the Carey Price and Paul Byron injury sagas, Shea Weber possibly retiring with a career-ending injury, and Tomas Tatar and Phillip Danault leaving via free agency (despite signing Mike Hoffman, David Savard, Cedric Paquette and Mathieu Perreault).
There was absolutely no good reason for the Habs to select Logan Mailloux in the Draft. I don’t care about how he is an arguable first round talent, that’s not good enough.
He was convicted of sharing a photo during a consensual sexual encounter without the woman’s consent. Although he was 17 at the time of the incident, the female, who is now 18, was not a minor.
What is also disgusting is that he shared the photo in the SK Lejon team group chat on Snapchat during a bus ride to a road game. That led him to being fined for both offensive photography and defamation.
As a result, multiple teams put him on their “Do Not Draft” lists, and he himself has asked teams not to draft him as he “reassessed his character” in preparation for the 2022 NHL Draft.
He was still available to be drafted, with GM Marc Bergevin saying, “The player cannot remove yourself from the Draft. Even if you say so, you are eligible to be drafted. That was clear with the league.” However, several teams, including the Coyotes, Blackhawks, Rangers, and Maple Leafs kept him out of their Draft boards. The list is likely longer than four teams, as six teams did not interview him at all.
The most shocking part is the fact that the Habs drafted him.
In spite of everything, which is, in effect, of no consequence, unless the scrutiny that Mailloux will receive and already has in one of the NHL’s most punishing markets to players, a fact that makes the selection questionable, troubling, and embarrassing all at the same time.
While the support that the Habs are committing to him is critical, the necessary support of the victim is to a greater degree. The Habs’ decision flies in the face of her ability to move on from the incident.
The fact that Bergevin had a prepared statement to read before answering questions from the media speaks to the gravity of the situation. This also shows that the Habs understood their decision would be heavily condemned, but there is still a tone-deafness that cannot be denied.
What they made is a mockery of the pre-Draft interview process.
Mailloux’s behaviors is one of the most egregious and disqualifying factors that can come up in such a situation and can be grounds for having his Draft rights rescinded, similar to Mitchell Miller in 2020.
If a job candidate asks not to be hired in an actual job interview, that person is not getting hired, and would likely be admonished for wasting the company’s time in the process. Of course, they are not going to be hired anyway for having been convicted of anything, let alone offensive photography.
It’s hard to say that this is a waste of a 1st round pick, because a lot can happen. However, this wastes a lot of the work that Bergevin did to build the Habs team that advanced to the Stanley Cup Final in 2021.
He long backed the need for character, including with regard to Zack Kassian in 2015, when he was involved in a car accident and subsequently placed in the league’s Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program. When he was reinstated, he never played a game for the Habs, getting shipped to the Oilers for Ben Scrivens.
Kassian is proof that players can make good on second chances and that people deserve them, as he was able to turn his career around, getting a semblance of stability as a member of the Oilers since the trade. There’s a possibility that the Mailloux selection is a sign that Bergevin learned his lesson, to give players a second chance.
However, Mailloux has to earn that second chance.
Ultimately, the Habs made a decision to draft a player who has deep flaws in himself.
Being a professional athlete, regardless of sport, is a privilege. Having a strong athletic ability, putting in countless hours of training and having the financial means to gain access to the best coaches, facilities, and schools does not entitle a person to play at the highest ranks.
The Habs’ selection of Mailloux angers me, and them drafting him is a problem that goes much deeper than the organization.
Continuing to overlook the histories of players who commit these crimes is not the “second chance at redemption” message that teams and the league seem to think it does, but rather sends the message to everyone listening that even if you commit these crimes, the league does not think they are serious enough to disqualify you from playing in the NHL.
Not only was that message loud and clear with that selection, but it was reiterated with Habs assistant GM Trevor Timmins responded with 22 seconds of silence when he was asked by The Athletic’s Marc-Antoine Godin on why the organization believes that he deserved to be drafted when he himself didn’t.
Inside those 22 seconds lies decades of abuse, cover-ups, and nonchalance from the NHL in this type of behavior which is likely to continue in the future thanks to this selection.
Many children dream of growing up to play in a professional sports league and of being drafted by their favorite team. Through their actions, NHL players have the ability to teach children that everyone deserves to be treated with respect, and if that they treat everyone they encounter the way they treat everyone, their dream will be achieved.
This is why just because one is good at hockey doesn’t mean that it should negate the crimes they commit.
Using the term “mistake” to describe the crimes that Mailloux committed is dangerously wrong.
A mistake is forgetting to study for a test. Committing the crime that Mailloux made is not making a mistake.
And this is not to mention that Mailloux did not blame the victim for his situation for refusing to forget it happened.
His second chance was to give his victim a meaningful apology and make amends in a manner satisfactory to her, to still live his life, play his sport, and to be a better person moving onward.
But of all the arguments that fly around in these situations, the one that is the most baffling is that “everyone does it.”
All hockey players and fans know what the hockey culture is like and what the locker room culture is like. As hockey grows around the world and gets more popular, kids are lacing up the skates as young as two years old. Is this culture really the one you want the next generation of hockey players to grow up in? One where they degrade people and it gets them locker room points with their teammates?
That argument is simply the equivalent of the “boys will be boys” argument to “defend” the indefensible. It’s this mentality that leads to Mailloux thinking that he will face no repercussions for an inappropriate action.
When it goes on for so long and it reaches the top level, it can be a situation similar to Brad Aldrich and the fiasco that the Blackhawks are currently in, or to the countless other stories of players doing things that are deserving of severe punishment that you are only hearing about in whispers.
There should be zero tolerance of abuse of any kind in sports.
By not actively removing the privilege of joining an NHL team from players guilty of such crimes, by drafting players to give them a “second chance” in their first shot at making it to the big stage, the NHL is sending a clear message: That in the quest to win the Stanley Cup, victims of abuse—predominantly women, but not exclusively so as the situation of the Blackhawks shows—are considered as an acceptable form of collateral damage as the league carries on.
Not cool, NHL.
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