Patrick Kane makes a new statement concerning Kyle Beach investigation

In case you missed it last week, Chicago Blackhawks superstars Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane both met with the media following and effectively filibustered for 10 minutes when asked about the allegations of former Blackhawks draft pick Kyle Beach that the entire 2010 Blackhawks roster knew about the abused he suffered from then team video coach Brad Aldrich.

To date both Toews and Kane had maintained that they knew nothing about the abuse, despite Beach stating that “everybody in that locker room knew about it.”

If indeed that's the case then Toews' and Kane's comments from last week do not look good and both men pose a giant PR nightmare for the team. A team that can't really afford much more bad press...

Here's what Toews and Kane had to say at the time:

"Stan (Bowman) and Al (MacIsaac) ... they’re not directly complicit in the activities that happened. It’s not up to me to comment on whether they would like to deal with it differently or not. ... I have a lot of respect for them as people. They're good people."

"Do we wish they had been dealt with differently in some ways? Probably."

- Jonathan Toews

"I knew Kyle pretty well from a couple different training camps. He seemed like a happy-go-lucky guy... I wish back then we could've done some different things or known some different things to helped him. I feel bad for him, if that stuff happened."

- Patrick Kane

Kane would go on to call Bowman "a great man who did a lot of things for me personally."

Probably not a good time to be throwing your support behind a man who aided and abetted a sexual predators, there Patty...

Now, nearly a week later at least Kane is changing his tune a bit. Following last night's victory over the Ottawa Senators, Kane clarified his position on the situation, saying:

"I feel bad about the last time I talked. I put my personal experience with management ahead of the way Kyle [Beach] was treated by them... It takes incredible courage and pride for him to come forward. We're all thinking about him."

Patrick Kane

You know what? Good on you, Patty.

None of these guys are perfect PR linguists and it's clear that Kane put his foot in his mouth last week. It sounds like he's educated himself a bit over this past week and now he's owning up to his poor approach the first time around. This is commendable. It's not perfect and he still has some work to do, but this is what progress looks lke.