What the Blackhawks’ public relations debacle teaches everyone else

By Tom Corfman

They say, “Feed a cold, starve a fever.” But when you’re in the middle of a crisis, the news media is a fever you must feed.

This is a lesson that the Chicago Blackhawks learned the hard way last week.

At a livestreamed event, the hockey team’s owner heatedly refused to answer reporters’ questions about a sexual-assault case the team settled in December. It was the news media’s first opportunity to ask about the settlement since it was announced.

“That’s none of your business,” Rocky Wirtz told one reporter.

“I told you to get off the subject,” he told another, appearing heartless to the suffering of the former player and other victims of sexual assault.

Even if you’re not a sports fan, you may have caught wind of his tirade. There’s nothing like good video to spread a story. The international surge in publicity has raised new questions about whether the team, which had concealed the assault, was committed to disclosure and to preventing another assault.

Be transparent. Answer all questions. These are tenets of crisis communications we drill into our clients’ heads, knowing full well there are times, for a variety of reasons, they won’t follow this advice. Let’s take a closer look at what happened and what went so terribly wrong with the Blackhawks.

The assault

Controversy has dogged the Blackhawks since May, when a former prospect filed a lawsuit alleging that a former assistant coach forced him to have sex in 2010, when the player was just 20. The team’s senior management learned of the assault but hushed it up. The team won the championship that year, the first of three Stanley Cups for the team over the next five years.

After the 2010 triumph, the executives allowed the coach to resign, paid him a severance and gave him the honors afforded members of an NHL championship team, including engraving his name on the trophy. With the Blackhawks on his resume, the coach picked up jobs with four more organizations. In 2013, he was convicted in Michigan of criminal sexual assault of a minor.

That case, a second lawsuit and other developments were followed by both local and national media. Questions abounded about who knew what when. Then in October, team executives held a news conference after releasing the results of a damaging independent investigation, which found they had covered up the assault. Rocky and his son Danny Wirtz did not know about the assault or cover-up, according to the report, and they cleaned house, letting go those executives who participated in the cover-up.

The town hall

The Feb. 2 event was billed as a mid-season update for a team stuck in next-to-last place in its division, with a record of 16-23. In addition to questions from three reporters, fans submitted written questions that were read by one of the team’s announcers.

“The town hall should’ve been an opportunity for Hawks brass to put a button on an unfortunate saga in franchise history,” wrote Phil Thompson, who covers the Blackhawks for the Chicago Tribune, after the debacle.

Wirtz’s response is more startling because the reporters’ questions were fair.

Mark Lazerus of The Athletic said the assault was the result of “a power imbalance between a coach and a player.” He asked Danny Wirtz, named the team’s CEO in December 2020, what the Blackhawks were doing to empower a player in the future to prevent such abuse.

As Danny began to answer, Rocky cut off his son.

“We’re not looking back at 2010,” Rocky snapped. “I don’t think it’s any of your business…. If someone in the company asked that question, we’ll answer it.”

Following up, Thompson noted that when the team released the internal investigation, team executives “talked about a change in culture and transparency.”

“It seems like the second that we ask a question about that, it’s met with resistance,” he said. “We’re asking about the values and the protections for the future.”

Rocky Wirtz shot back, “I don’t care, I’m not going to answer this line of questions.”

A polite refusal by Wirtz to answer the questions would have been a bad story for the team. His irate rejection made a bad story worse.

Lessons learned

When is a crisis over? Answer: when the news media stop asking questions and not a moment sooner.

Clamping down in the middle of a long-running crisis usually has the opposite effect of what’s intended. But that’s what the Blackhawks did by not holding a news conference in December after agreeing to settle the former prospect’s case.  The second lawsuit only meant that reporters would ask their questions at the next opportunity, the town hall.

A better strategy is to start with what reporters want to know and then move to what you want to tell them. The Blackhawks will soon have a chance to do better. Three more men are considering lawsuits, according to reports.

The Muck Rack blog recently offered six tips for prepping CEOs for media interviews.

How to make the CEOs listen isn’t one of the tips.

Tom Corfman is an attorney and senior consultant with Ragan Consulting Group, which specializes in corporate communications training, consulting and strategic counsel.

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