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Anyone else read the Athletic's article on Chico Adrahtas and abuse? ?


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It serves as a good reminder to look out for your kids, and maybe bring up- or repeat- what is and isn't appropriate behavior from a coach, or any adult for that matter. This whole thing is just like the recent church stuff, Penn State, Boy Scouts, etc. where enough people knew damn well what was going on and allowed it to continue.

Here's an excerpt, that makes it hard to have much confidence in Jim Smith or USA Hockey (well, whatever confidence anyone had left after they decided to hire John Vanbiesbrouk) . I remember hearing about Adrahtas a couple years ago, but not to the extent of the article. I'd post the whole article, but it's not really appropriate to put where kids might read it, it's pretty explicit. 

"

In 2010, Adrahtas was slated to be inducted into the Illinois Hockey Hall of Fame.

Chris Jensen heard about it and reached out through a friend to AHAI, the regional affiliate of USA Hockey in the state of Illinois that oversees the nomination process and approves candidates, and notified the organization about what Adrahtas had done to him. Jensen was asked to draft a letter detailing his experience. It was the first time Jensen had told anyone outside his immediate friend group what happened (The Athletic spoke to three of Jensen’s friends, who confirmed the details of his disclosure to them).

The letter that Jensen sent to AHAI, dated Feb. 10, 2010, describes his interactions with Adrahtas in the summer of 1984. Jensen wrote that he believed Adrahtas performed oral sex on him, that he felt it was part of a larger pattern of abuse and that Adrahtas was a threat to adolescents and those under his authority.  (This letter was later shared with the SafeSport investigator, according to a source.)

Jensen said he was subsequently informed that an AHAI hearing was set for Adrahtas to address the allegations but that Adrahtas had some sort of breakdown and declined to cooperate with investigators. Jensen was told Adrahtas was suspended from coaching AHAI-sanctioned teams.

AHAI has declined to comment on any disciplinary action taken against Adrahtas as a result of the letter, or on account of any previous or subsequent notifications of his behavior. Nowhere in the publicly available minutes of the AHAI board of directors meetings in 2010 is there any evidence that Jensen’s letter was discussed. USA Hockey, via a spokesperson, said that it never received any reports of misconduct prior to September 2018.

Several AHAI officials declined to comment or did not return calls and emails. At least one deferred to the organization’s lawyer and SafeSport. That lawyer did not return multiple calls and emails for comment.

The SafeSport investigator assigned to the case referred questions to a spokesperson, who declined to divulge specifics of the investigation, citing both privacy and safety concerns.

When approached at a recent USA Hockey event, Jim Smith, a long-standing member of AHAI (he was recently recognized with the Founders Award for 40 years of service to the organization; 1980-2020), said that he was never aware that AHAI was informed about Adrahtas and did not know what happened with his Illinois Hockey Hall of Fame candidacy. 

Smith is now the president of USA Hockey."

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Yeah it's pretty crazy. Though I knew the organization was a joke when they hired Vanbiesbrouck. Not only for what he did, that's bad enough. But just the thought of doing something like that, then still sticking to it when people spoke up about it being ridiculous, just showed me that 1) the organization has bad judgment, and 2) they don't care what anybody thinks; they want you to step aside because they're going to do whatever they want to, anyway. 

 

Unfortunately, nothing will come of this abuse stuff. But I don't have a ton of confidence in USA Hockey doing anything about future situations like this after reading that. Not that a parent should rely on anybody but themselves for their kids's safety... but USA Hockey shouldn't be making it harder. 

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