After the first day of the NHL Board of Governors meetings in Manalapan, Fla., the league wanted to steer the media access conversation Thursday toward a new initiative designed to help prevent the Kyle Beach incident from happening again.

The initiative, which will work alongside Sheldon Kennedy's Respect Group to counsel victims as well as continue to provide a hotline to report abuse, bullying and other inappropriate behaviour, comes in the wake earlier this season of accusations that Beach was abused by a video coach while with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010.

After the first day of the NHL Board of Governors meetings in Manalapan, Fla., the league wanted to steer the media access conversation Thursday toward a new initiative designed to help prevent the Kyle Beach incident from happening again.

The initiative, which will work alongside Sheldon Kennedy's Respect Group to counsel victims as well as continue to provide a hotline to report abuse, bullying and other inappropriate behaviour, comes in the wake earlier this season of accusations that Beach was abused by a video coach while with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010.

Responding to a question from Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the hotline has been getting calls, but no incidents are of the "magnitude" of the Beach incident 11 years ago. He didn't say whether the NHL is investigating any specifically, saying only that if there are incidents reported, they will be followed up on.

Bettman prefaced the discussion by saying what happened to Beach was "inappropriate" and "unacceptable," and the NHL was "sorry it happened."