HARTFORD — Joel Quenneville got the word on July 1. His suspension was lifted and NHL franchises were given the green light to hire him.
“I’m thankful to the league,” Quenneville said Saturday, speaking for the first time since his reinstatement and 2 1/2 years after he resigned as coach of the Panthers. “I’ve been three years out of the game, so it has been a while since I’ve been behind the bench; behind the wheel. We’ll see how that plays out, but I’d like to get back. I look forward to it.”
Quenneville’s downfall came as a result of his response, a lack of action when sexual assault allegations were made against Blackhawks video coach Brad Aldrich during the 2010 playoffs, when Quenneville was Chicago’s head coach.
“My goal is to come back and show what I’ve learned, that I’ve learned some lessons along the way from what went wrong in Chicago,” he said. “And apply those lessons and messages and make sure that it’s a safe environment for everyone around the room, the players and staff. After that, personally, it would be wonderful to come back and have a chance to win again.”
Quenneville, in town for the Yard Goats’ annual Whalers Weekend at Dunkin Park, was among former teammates and others who were part of the Whalers’ history. He played in Hartford from 1983-90, part of the most successful period the franchise had, including the 1986 playoff run.
“The support was tremendous,” Quenneville said. “A lot of people were up in Montreal for our playoff round with the Canadiens. A lot of good memories. We were the only game in the state, a lot of people became involved in the community, the team and the organization did a great job getting the players involved. And we had a pretty good team. We were underdogs in a very tough division with the Bruins, and there was a lot of passion in those games.”
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Many of those Whalers have had a long post-playing career in hockey, in Quenneville’s case, a coaching record worthy of Hall of Fame consideration. He led the Chicago Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup in 2010, ’13 and ’15, the franchise’s first championships since 1961. He was chasing another In Florida, off to a 7-0 start, when he resigned.
In 2010, when Aldrich was accused of sexually assaulting a young player, Kyle Beach, the Chicago organization took no action, did not inform police or human resources for several weeks, until after the Stanley Cup final. Aldrich then left the Blackhawks and three years later pleaded guilty to assaulting a high school player in Michigan and was sentenced to nine months in prison and five years probation.
Only in 2021, when lawsuits and an independent investigation revealed the lack of prompt action 11 years earlier, was there accountability for the Chicago management team. Quenneville, after a meeting with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, resigned as Panthers coach on Oct. 27, 2021. Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman and assistant GM Al MacIsaac lost their jobs, and none were to be employed in the league again without the commissioner’s permission. Another player, remaining anonymous, sued the Blackhawks in 2023 for failure to address complaints against Aldrich.
After the league reinstated all three, Bowman was quickly hired as GM of the Edmonton Oilers. Quenneville met with Bettman last summer, and he and Bowman addressed NHL coaches in September, telling them what they had learned. On a podcast in April, Quenneville was not clear about what he knew and when he knew it, but admitted he “should have asked more questions,” and of his response, he said he “owned it.”
Two months later, the NHL lifted its ban: “For more than the last two and a half years, these individuals have been ineligible to work for any NHL team as a result of their inadequate response upon being informed in 2010 of allegations that Blackhawks’ player Kyle Beach had been assaulted by the club’s video coach,” the NHL’s statement of July 1 read. “While it is clear that, at the time, their responses were unacceptable, each of these three individuals has acknowledged that and used his time away from the game to engage in activities which not only demonstrate sincere remorse for what happened, but also evidence greater awareness of the responsibilities that all NHL personnel have, particularly personnel who are in positions of leadership.”
It was great to catch up with former NHL All Star Kevin Dineen at Whalers Alumni Weekend with the @GoYardGoats. Our conversation on the pregame show 1:00 on @NESN pic.twitter.com/cdsNbkMMCI
— Jeff Dooley (@JeffDools) July 28, 2024
Quenneville, 65, has 969 wins, against 572 losses, 77 ties and 150 overtime losses with four franchises. Only Hall of Famer Scotty Bowman, Stan’s father, has won more NHL games, 1,244.
Though Quenneville’s suspension is over, his exile will continue as all coaching positions are filled within the league. There is frequent coaching turnover in the NHL, however, and a coach with three Cups and 20 playoff appearances in 22 seasons is likely to be considered, though it would be a controversial hire.
“Every organization is at a different stage of their learning curve, readiness to win,” he said. “I don’t know how much time is left in my coaching lifetime, but it would be fun to do it again because we had so much fun doing it. Recapturing that feeling, there is nothing better.”
Quenneville, who met his wife, Elizabeth, in Hartford while playing for the Whalers, still has a home in the area, but he has spent much of his time playing pickleball and tennis in Florida, and with his hobby, horse racing. “… Slow horses,” he said. And he has watched a lot of hockey.
Paul Maurice, the last coach of the Whalers, took over the Panthers in 2022 and won the Stanley Cup this past June.
“I was happy for (owner) Vinnie (Viola),” Quenneville said. “He was great to me during this whole process. A lot of the players there, I had the privilege of being around them. Sometimes you’re disappointed when you leave a team and they go on (to win), but I was happy for a lot of guys. When I went there (in 2019), I had a five-year deal and Vinnie promised me ‘We’re going to win the Cup,’ and he was right on.”
To win, the Panthers beat Edmonton, which had the best record in the league after hiring Kris Knoblauch off the bench of the Hartford Wolf Pack in November. The Oilers came from a 3-0 deficit to force a Game 7 against Florida by one goal.
“You’ve got to give the guy who was here in Hartford a lot of credit, No.1, for what he did,” Quenneville said. “That was spectacular, coming into the league the first year, taking a team that was (3-9-1) and getting them one goal away, one shot away. That was an amazing comeback, how he got the team together, not an easy place to turn a franchise around the way he did it. He did an amazing job.”
The enduring appeal of the Whalers, who left Hartford for Carolina in April 1997, brought Quenneville back to comfortable surroundings. He joined ex-Whalers and current Yard Goats players on a visit to St. Francis hospital on Friday, and signed autographs and greeted fans for lunch and batting practice on Saturday. Many greeting him were wishing Quenneville luck in pursuing another chance to coach.
“You want to build the right kind of chemistry,” Quenneville said. “The team is always first. The more you can get everybody involved getting some ice time, trying to be more than a three-line team, be a four-line team with six defensemen going, if you can build around that consistency, you can get some things done.”
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