Travis Green and J.T. Miller react to Kyle Beach coming forward as John Doe in Blackhawks sexual assault lawsuit

Everyone in the hockey world and beyond looked on as former Chicago Blackhawks prospect Kyle Beach courageously stepped forward and revealed himself as John Doe in the sexual assault lawsuit against former Chicago video coach Brad Aldrich and the organization yesterday afternoon.

The fallout has been massive from this story, and rightfully so.

The Blackhawks covered up this story for years, and right up until a few months ago, made it out to be that Beach was a liar and called his claims meritless, according to Beach.

Beach gave an emotional interview with TSN’s Rick Westhead, which Canucks head coach Travis Green and J.T. Miller were asked for their thoughts on today.

You can watch the entire TSN interview with Rick Westhead and Kyle Beach here:

“I did watch it, I’ve watched a couple times,” said Green. “I think it kind of punches you in the gut. Every time I’ve watched it, it’s been hard to watch. By hard I mean emotional, sad. You really can’t imagine what a person goes through, what Kyle went through in that scenario. I think it takes you back to being a younger player. I also think it’s important to acknowledge him for being courageous — being brave enough to come out and talk about it. You can see and feel how hard that was for him. You hope that it helps him heal. The wounds would obviously be big in something like that. But also that it helps a lot of other people in the world, not just sports but society in general. There’s just there’s no place for stuff like that to happen to people in sport and in society.”

“It’s pretty awful and you know at least he can have the courage to say something,” said J.T. Miller, who spent have a season in Hartford with Beach years ago. “He played hard, he’s a talented player so I’m just wishing him the best and I’m glad he said something.”

Miller and Green were both asked if they feel the Canucks organization has a culture that welcomes players to come forward if something is awry with them.

“I do,” said Green. “I think players should feel where they play, where they work, is a safe place. I’d like to hope that I think that our players know that our organization always has their back if something’s wrong, something’s happened to them, something’s not right in any part of their life. Checking in with your players is important.”

Miller echoed similar thoughts.

“You don’t want stuff like this to happen is the easy answer,” said Miller. “I mean I think we have an organization here that’s welcoming in the sense of we can go to anybody to talk but anything. I can’t believe things like this are even happening, it’s sucks to hear about.”

You can read the full details of Beach’s lawsuit against the Blackhawks here.