MIAMI — The past was rushing in on Joel Quenneville, and it was taking dead aim. It was coming hard enough that it looked like it might end his time with the Florida Panthers and his storied career in the National Hockey League.
And that it should have. And now, it has.
This controversy pointed Quenneville — second in all-time NHL coaching victories — to being fired by the Panthers, or allowed to resign. Or to an NHL suspension, or banishment.
Thursday night, at about 9:45, the Panthers announced he had resigned. He was given that courtesy, rather than being fired.
In any case the end was just.
Quenneville, 11 years ago, took no action when a former player of his alleged a sexual assault by a member of his coaching staff.
This was the biggest scandal involving a sitting head coach of a South Florida professional sports team. Thursday night the Panthers aimed to put it in the past by parting ways with their star coach.
What engulfed Quenneville, 63, happened in Chicago in 2010 and had nothing to do, then, with the Florida Panthers. Oh, but it did now. Because Quenneville was the Panthers coach now, in his third season here.
And the long-secret mess he was implicated in was interrupting Florida’s dream season with a bombshell nightmare.
The Panthers are 7-0-0 — best record in hockey, best start in the Cats’ 28-year franchise history — entering Friday night’s game in Detroit. The goals differential is 31 to 13. Hopes for the club’s first Stanley Cup are rising, and real.
Except nobody is talking right now about how good the Panthers are, or what a fun story they are.
Because the head coach, Quenneville, was in the crosshairs for what happened in 2010 to “John Doe,” who has come forward as Kyle Beach. He is a former Chicago Blackhawks minor-leaguer, then 20, who says he was sexually assaulted by the team’s video coach, Brad Aldrich, 11 years ago. Beach is now suing over the mishandling of his allegations or, rather, the ignoring of them.
The Blackhawks commissioned an investigation by the law firm Jenner & Block, which found “nothing was done” about the allegations by Chicago’s management or coaching staff.
The report, out this week, led to the NHL fining the Blackhawks $2 million and to Chicago president and general manager Stan Bowman and one other executive resigning.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman met with Quenneville and Florida general manager Bill Zito for two hours Thursday afternoon in New York, with no announcement coming from the meeting .
The allegations came as the Blackhawks were in the postseason headed to winning the 2010 Stanley Cup. Quenneville is cast as the coach who did not want to disrupt the team’s momentum with controversy, and so was a part of the cover-up.
The investigation, made public Tuesday, revealed the man players call “Coach Q” was aware of the allegations and was in on at least one meeting about it during the 2010 playoffs.
“There’s absolutely no way that he [Quenneville] can deny knowing it,” Beach said Wednesday in an interview on Canadian network TSN.
Quenneville was allowed to coach in Florida’s game Wednesday night but did not avail himself to the media afterward. The GM Zito spoke, and said: “There’s no question that the influx of information that has recently become available is deeply troubling.” Zito commended Beach for his “courage” in coming forward, calling what he endured “serious and severe.”
This was the allegation of a single person, but it had echoes of the recent gymnastics scandal that led to the life sentence imposed against Dr. Larry Nassar, the U.S. Gymnastics doctor.
This proves that one instance can be enough. That one is too many.
Panthers players had been thrust into an uncomfortable situation to say the least, one that will linger.
“As players, we just want to concentrate on the game,” said captain Aleksander Barkov.
We’d said Quenneville should not have been allowed on the bench when the Panthers resumed their season Friday night in Detroit. That became certain Thursday night.
The disgraced head coach who failed to act on the sexual assault of a player would never again coach a game for the Florida Panthers.
