{"id":226368,"date":"2025-10-20T01:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T01:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/226368\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T01:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T01:29:07","slug":"joel-quenneville-returns-to-chicago-1st-time-since-scandal-broke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/226368\/","title":{"rendered":"Joel Quenneville returns to Chicago, 1st time since scandal broke"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Blackhawks saw a familiar face at the United Center on Sunday against the Anaheim Ducks. One who comes with championships and controversy.<\/p>\n

The night started normally: fans filed into their seats for the Hawks\u2019 fourth home game of the season, booed the road team and cheered for the home team during starting lineup introductions. The only difference was the elephant in the room.<\/p>\n

Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville accepted the Anaheim job in May<\/a>, replacing Greg Cronin.<\/p>\n

Quenneville, the Hawks coach from 2008-18, and Hawks executives Stan Bowman and Al MacIsaac were banned from the NHL for nearly three years after an independent investigation<\/a> concluded the team mishandled allegations raised by former Hawks player Kyle Beach against video coach Brad Aldrich during the team\u2019s first Stanley Cup run. The trio was reinstated in July 2024.<\/p>\n

While Quenneville\u2019s on-ice record was remarkable \u2014 winning Stanley Cups in 2010, 2013 and 2015 with teams that featured Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews \u2014 his off-ice behavior in 2010 eventually led to his resignation from the Florida Panthers in October 2021 and a lengthy banishment from the league.<\/p>\n

Prior to this season, Quenneville hadn\u2019t coached since his resignation from the Florida Panthers on Oct. 28, 2021, just days after he was named in the independent investigation report.<\/p>\n

Initially identified as \u201cJohn Doe,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Beach claimed that Aldrich threatened both physical and financial harm if he didn\u2019t engage in various sex acts.<\/p>\n

The Hawks hired the Jenner & Block law firm to investigate, which determined that top Hawks\u2019 officials didn\u2019t report Beach\u2019s allegations until after they won the 2010 Stanley Cup. Additionally, the firm\u2019s report said that the team paid Aldrich severance to resign.<\/p>\n

In 2021, the two sides reached a settlement<\/a> in Beach\u2019s negligence lawsuit. The monetary amount was not revealed.<\/p>\n

When Quenneville was hired as the Ducks head coach, he vowed to be a renewed and more humble person<\/a> than he was before his coaching break. At his introductory news conference, he addressed the elephant in the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver nearly four years, I\u2019ve taken time to reflect, listen to experts and advocates and educate myself on realities of abuse, trauma and how to be a better leader,\u201d Quenneville said. \u201cI hope others can learn from my inaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve spoken to Kyle more than once (and) I\u2019ve apologized to him and express how much I regret not following up and taking action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking with the media prior to Sunday\u2019s game, Quenneville said he immediately addressed the Ducks team upon his hire. He shared what he wished he\u2019d done differently during his time with the Hawks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could have been more forceful and asked more questions and gotten more involved in the details of what happened,\u201d Quenneville said. \u201cTwo takeaways was, one applying those lessons to make sure it doesn\u2019t happen under our watch and making sure the players\u2019 health and safety is priority number one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hawks previously recognized their former coach in 2020<\/a> when Quenneville returned to Chicago as the bench boss of the Panthers, so a further tribute is unlikely. But Quenneville said he has good memories of his time with the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a lot of great moments and a lot of nights that we were celebrating different events and achievements from the past,\u201d Quenneville said. \u201cI\u2019m happy to be back in that building and hear the crowd being excited and the team looks like they\u2019re on that next level of trying to be a playoff team. They look like they\u2019re on the right track.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quenneville said he and Beach have remained in contact since the settlement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always have a positive conversation (with Beach),\u201d Quenneville said. \u201cI\u2019ll leave the conversations between us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fans at the United Center on Sunday didn\u2019t go out of their way to acknowledge the former Hawks coach who brought three championships to the team, outside of a few timid cheers and boos. Will that change in the future?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d Quenneville said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Blackhawks saw a familiar face at the United Center on Sunday against the Anaheim Ducks. One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[1419,64,63,136932,7520,136929,136931,2462,575,36582,82857,136930,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-226368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-anaheim-ducks","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-brad-aldrich","12":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","13":"tag-joel-quenneville","14":"tag-kyle-beach","15":"tag-lawsuit","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-nhl-ban","18":"tag-nhl-hockey","19":"tag-sexual-assault-allegations","20":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}