Chicago Blackhawks fire athletic trainer of minor-league team for sexual harassment, sources say

The Chicago Blackhawks fired the longtime head athletic trainer of their AHL affiliate for sexual harassment, sources told ESPN.

When reached by ESPN on Sunday, the Blackhawks confirmed that Rockford IceHogs head athletic trainer D.J. Jones' employment had been terminated in November. According to sources, the person was a member of the team's ice crew and the allegations were from an incident that happened years ago.

«Under our new leadership, we have made it crystal clear that nothing is more important than the safety and well-being of our players and employees, and there is a zero-tolerance policy for any violation of our standards of conduct in our organization. We have done a lot of work to ensure an environment where employees are encouraged to feel safe coming forward, even if it is about wrongdoing that occurred in the past,» the team said in a statement.

«Recently, when allegations of sexual harassment in 2014 by D.J. Jones, the head athletic trainer for the Rockford IceHogs, were reported to the Blackhawks on October 27, 2021, we adhered to our new protocols and procedures, suspended Mr. Jones, conducted an in depth investigation over 5 days and, following the conclusive results, terminated Mr. Jones on November 3, 2021.»

Jones could not be immediately reached for comment.

Jones was in his 16th year with the IceHogs organization. His name has been scrubbed from the team's website, and his information is no longer available on an internal database for trainers. The IceHogs have promoted their assistant athletic trainer, John Walter, to the head trainer position.

Jones was dismissed in November, one month the Blackhawks reached a confidential settlement with Kyle Beach. Beach, a 2008 first-round pick by the