For a man who’s never been all that loquacious, who looks at a microphone the way he looks at a forward who’s disinterested in playing defense, Joel Quenneville was doing pretty well.
After more than two years of behind-the-scenes work to put himself back in the NHL’s good graces, the first public stop on Quenneville’s image-rehab/redemption tour was the Cam and Strick Podcast, a friendly but pointed interview this week with St. Louis Blues rinkside reporter Andy Strickland. And for the first time, Quenneville took some ownership of the Chicago Blackhawks’ systemic failure to protect Kyle Beach in 2010. He continued to insist he didn’t know the sexual nature of Beach’s allegations against video coach Brad Aldrich, repeatedly pleading ignorance, as he has from the moment Beach’s lawsuit surfaced in May 2021. But Quenneville should have asked more questions, he said. He should have pursued the matter further, he said. He shouldn’t have just assumed team president John McDonough and the brass would properly handle the matter, he said.
Then toward the end of the 45-minute interview, Quenneville blew a tire.
“I had a miss in 2010 and I own it,” he said. “At the same time, I believe there’s a place for me in the game.”
A miss. A miss. A miss is having too many men on the ice. A miss is making the wrong matchup decision in a playoff game. This was far more than a mere miss.
And so here is Quenneville, the second-winningest coach in NHL history. He admits he did wrong, but he also clearly still feels wronged. He’s put in long hours educating himself on workplace culture and power dynamics and he said he’s spoken with Beach, but he also still sometimes uses the careless, callous words of someone who hasn’t learned.
Quenneville wants a second chance. He wants to chase 1,000 wins and Scotty Bowman. And it’s left for NHL commissioner Gary Bettman — and the hockey world — to figure out how much he’s really changed, and to work out for themselves how much he really deserves reinstatement. What wins the internal debate? Emotion? Empathy? Or mere resignation?
The emotional response, the instinctive response that surges from deep down in my gut, is simply disgust.
That the NHL would consider allowing Quenneville to coach again, that an NHL team would want Quenneville to coach again — to lead the young men in its charge, to be the franchise’s voice and face and spine and character — after everything we know, everything we learned, and everything we still wonder, is stomach-churning.
Shall we recap?
Back in May 2010, during the Blackhawks’ Western Conference final sweep of the San Jose Sharks, Beach — a prospect and Black Ace — told Blackhawks skill coach Paul Vincent that Aldrich had sexually assaulted him. Vincent reported it to mental skills coach Jim Gary, who took it up the organizational chain. According to law firm Jenner & Block’s investigation into the incident, commissioned 11 years later by the Blackhawks, team management held a meeting shortly after Game 4 of the conference final at the United Center that included Gary, McDonough, general manager Stan Bowman, executives Al MacIsaac and Jay Blunk, and assistant GM Kevin Cheveldayoff.
Quenneville was then summoned to join the meeting. Gary told investigators Quenneville “appeared angry and was concerned about upsetting team chemistry.” Bowman told investigators Quenneville “shook his head and said that it was hard for the team to get where they were, and they could not deal with this issue now.”
This is the man who wants back in the league. A man who would not protect one of his players from a possible sexual predator on his staff because firing Aldrich — the guy who cuts clips for special-teams meetings — would have been too disruptive. A month later, Quenneville penned a glowing job evaluation for Aldrich, according to the report, and congratulated him on winning the Stanley Cup. Aldrich even got his day with…
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