Patrick Kane skates with grace, a raw-boned little man with a preternatural feel for the game and an asp’s bite of a backhand shot. He has hoisted the Stanley Cup over his head three times, most recently when the Chicago Blackhawks won the championship in June.
He was sanctified by Men’s Journal. “How Patrick Kane Saved Hockey,” the magazine headline read a year ago. The Sporting News this June gave a passing nod to his history of prodigious drinking and loutishness, only to assure us that he could still be a “wild child” but it was “an old story buried in a file.”
We have enough trouble knowing ourselves; better not to assume you can peer into another’s soul.
Sometime in the bleary early hours of Aug. 2, the former wild child rode to his $2.6 million lakeshore home near Buffalo with two women he had met in a nightclub. Not long after, one of those women accused Kane of raping her. She was examined at a local hospital and was found to have scratches on her legs and bite marks on her shoulder, The Buffalo News reported.
Now the NHL’s Buffalo-born Prince Hal finds himself the subject of a criminal investigation into a rape allegation. No one is talking much. The Erie County district attorney, Frank A. Sedita III, whose grandfather once ran the political machine in Buffalo and who blanches at tackling politically delicate cases, has convened a grand jury and all but sewn his lips shut. Kane’s lawyer, Paul Cambria, who made his reputation as a First Amendment attorney for the porn industry and who defended Kane several years ago when he slugged a 62-year-old cabdriver, has, according to his secretary, “got no comment.”
The woman who says she was raped has maintained her silence.
You tread cautiously. In contrast to the case of Baltimore running back Ray Rice, in which one video showed him hauling his limp fiancée out of a casino elevator and another showed him knocking her out with a roundhouse punch, Kane faces no known video evidence.
Kane, who is 26, long ago turned his binge drinking, stick-his-tongue-out-as-he-falls-to-the-ground-drunk routine into personal branding. When “Kaner,” as he became known, vomits, he’s a rascal. When “Kaner” falls asleep on a bar stool or threatens to punch someone out, he’s a bad boy in the blue-collar world of hockey.
“He looked human,” Barry Melrose, the ESPN analyst, told Men’s Journal. “I think it just endeared him to people.”
Endearment probably depends on the “people” in question. In Madison, Wisconsin, in May 2012, he roamed about, by his own admission, drunk much of the time, and, students told Deadspin, almost getting into a fight.
There was a photo of him, his eyes in the half-closed style of a stumblebum, stumbling away from a police officer.
His team and the NHL rarely tried to call Kane to account for much of anything.
You want to avoid playing psychologist, much less doctor, much less dorm father. Thanks to social media photos, however, any reader can obtain documentary evidence suggesting Kaner’s drinking might go beyond boys will be boys.
A star quickly learns how easy it is to slip the noose of public disapproval. Kane’s default position is one of doe-eyed candor and repentance.
“We all saw the photos; they’re pretty embarrassing,” Kane said of his debauch in Madison. “Things probably got a little bit out of control.”
Three years earlier, he pulled the same contrition, candor, man-I-have-got-to-grow-up routine, after he and his cousin took a drunken ride home in a cab and grabbed and punched the 62-year-old driver when he was 20 cents short on change.
Kane was indicted on a charge of third-degree assault. He pleaded guilty to a violation, and apologized. “I’ve caused a lot of pain for my family, my hometown of Buffalo, the city of Chicago, the Chicago Blackhawks and the great fans we have here in Chicago,” he said. “And for that part, I sincerely apologize.”
The taxi driver, Jan Radecki, was missing from Kane’s apology list. Let it be noted Radecki is his own piece of work. Reached at home this week and asked about that case, he demanded: “You paying me? You don’t pay, I don’t talk.” That’s a deal, I replied, and hung up.
Let’s circle back to the rape accusation. Sedita’s office took charge of investigating the allegation. His office boasts a 98 percent conviction rate, which reflects less extraordinary acumen than intense caution. The office is known for passing on a wonderful range of important cases, from an old murder — subsequently solved by federal prosecutors — to a seemingly strong corruption case against a local political consultant.
Sedita is rumored in legal circles to desire a State Supreme Court seat. The Bar Association of Erie County recently decided to rate him. Its top rating is “outstanding” followed by “well qualified.” The bar handed a “qualified” to Sedita, which means he is a lawyer and can fog a mirror.
There was a rumor last week that Kane and the young woman were negotiating an out-of-court settlement. The Buffalo News reported that Sedita’s office had suspended its grand jury while the two sides talked, a move that baffled legal observers.
“Most prosecutors would say if your victim does not want to cooperate you have a nightmarish case,” noted Paul Shechtman, a former federal prosecutor and state director of criminal justice for former Gov. George Pataki. “But to stop a grand jury really does send the message that justice is for sale.”
An uproar ensued. Sedita’s office, without commenting on the reports, restarted the grand jury.
The NHL faces its uncomfortable truth. Gary Bettman, the commissioner, has termed the case “unfortunate,” which puts him on the record even as he veers into the ditch of understatement.
In a few days, training camps open. Will the league allow Kane to strap on his skates and join his teammates? Or will it suspend him with pay, although there is no determination he committed a crime?
“Obviously, we are actively monitoring events,” Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement. “Beyond that, there’s really nothing more we can share.”
Left unanswered is why someone — a team, a teammate or the league — did not step in earlier, and tell Kane that he is no longer a man-child, but a 26-year-old man in danger of careening into a world of hurt, for himself or for others.
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