Florida Panthers
Joel Quenneville Meets with NHL GMs, Coaches. Will He Return?
Former Florida Panthers coach Joel Quenneville continues to try and get back into the NHL after resigning in 2021 due to his role in a sexual assault scandal.
On Friday, Quenneville and former Chicago Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman spoke at a meeting between NHL coaches and GMs.
Both Quenneville and Bowman resigned under pressure after the Jenner & Block Report came out saying a proper investigation was not conducted by the Blackhawks when the team learned of a 2010 sexual assault of then-Blackhawks player Kyle Beach by video coach Brad Aldrich.
Quenneville had said he had no knowledge of the assault except “through the media” but that report disputed that.
Beach gave an interview to TSN which aired just prior to the Panthers playing host to the Bruins on Oct. 27, 2021. In that interview, Beach identified himself as the player who was assaulted and said that there was “no way” Quenneville “can deny knowing” about the incident.
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Quenneville coached the team that night but did not speak to the media following the game.
The following day, Quenneville went to New York along with team president Matt Caldwell and general manager Bill Zito to meet with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly was also part of the meeting.
The NHL has not said what was said in that meeting, but Quenneville tendered his resignation following it.
Florida signed Quenneville to a six-year deal in 2019 that was thought to pay close to $6 million per season.
A three-time Stanley Cup champion with the Blackhawks as well as an assistant on the 1996 Colorado team, Quenneville was eight games into his third season with the Panthers when he resigned and replaced by assistant coach Andrew Brunette.
Although neither Quenneville nor Bowman are officially suspended by the NHL, they still have to get Bettman’s permission to be considered for any work within the league.
Neither Quenneville nor Bowman spoke to the media afterward.
“They were here voluntarily,” Bettman said according to Sportsnet. “It wasn’t something that they were told they needed to do. We said, ‘If you’d like the opportunity to address the group, you could have it.’”
Bettman, according to Sportsnet, did not comment on what Bowman and Quenneville said.
“I still have to make a judgment as to when or whether it’s appropriate for them to be reinstated,” Bettman said, “so that’s not a question I’m prepared to answer right now.”
Said Arizona GM Bill Armstrong: “That was about leadership and responsibility and about, if something does come up, how to handle things thoroughly.You have to address it, investigate it, and it’s your responsibility as a leader to go above and beyond to make sure it’s dealt with. And that the league’s perspective, too.”
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Coach Q was railroaded. Beach gave statements to the investigators that he did not mention that the assault was sexual to any Chicago official until the summer after the Stanley Cup championship. Q, believing that this was a non-sexual assault, more like a dispute between a video coach and a minor league player, rightfully said during the meeting where he was first advised of the problem, “why am I here? This has nothing to do with me while I’m trying to win a cup.”
My beef is the fact that Kevin Cheveldayoff, who is currently the GM in Winnipeg, was also present at that impromptu meeting, held in a hallway, where coach Q was told about the assault, yet Kevin was allowed to keep his job, with the reasoning from the league being, kevins boss was there (stan bowman) so Kevin was reasonable in believing that his boss would take care of it. Well my bitch is, coach Qs boss was also there, why wasnt he afforded the same benefit of the doubt that keven Cheveldayoff was. Why isnt it reasonable to believe coach… Read more »
The way I heard, and it makes sense in the Cheveldayoff deal: He was the AGM on his way out to Winnipeg. There was nothing he could do because the investigation SHOULD have happened after he left. What happened with the Beach situation escalated that following summer/training camp when he was not there. Q said he never heard of anything but that was refuted by how everyone seemed to have heard about it by the time camp opened in 2010. Chev, of course, was running his own team by then.
Couldn’t agree more. If people actually read the report, it was very suspect at best as to whether an assault took place or a consensual relation. There were a lot of things that struck me as “odd” in that report. Also, why wait all that time until NOW to report it, when Q and the Panthers were on their way to one of the best starts ever. Also I guess if it came out that a player consensually had a relationship with a video coach, that would have looked even worse? I don’t know… but the public report that came… Read more »
Probably not a great look for the league if they do come back. That was handled about as poorly as it could have been.
But in today’s informationally overwhelmed and hypersensitive culture, people have diminished attention spans and little emotional regulatory ability. They would most likely complain about it non-stop for a couple days, then forget about it because they would be on to something else. It would only “not be a great look” for a few days.