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Phil Thompson: If this is Joel Quenneville's first attempt at contrition for the 2010 Blackhawks scandal -- try again

Phil Thompson, Chicago Tribune on

Published in Hockey

It just doesn’t track.

A team you coached to a Stanley Cup championship becomes embroiled in the biggest scandal in its history and is named in two lawsuits, and you were too bogged down with your job to take a peek?

Granted, Quenneville said he heard something about sexual assault (“I think it was the summer of ’21”) but he didn’t say how. When asked specifically by Strickland how he found out that Beach — as “John Doe” at the time — had sued the Hawks, Quenneville said: “I don’t know how (I) found out. I don’t know. Might have read it or somebody might have called me. Blackhawks might have called me.”

Mind you, it’s also on the record in the Jenner & Block report that Quenneville submitted to two interviews with the firm’s investigators, on July 20, 2021, and Sept. 27, 2021.

A source familiar with the Jenner & Block investigation told the Chicago Tribune that Quenneville told investigators “he had read the John Doe complaint,” referring to Beach’s lawsuit.

During a series of questions, Quenneville was asked whether he was aware a sexual assault had allegedly occurred, according to the source, who added that the former Hawks coach had an attorney present for both interviews, which were conducted via Zoom.

 

There’s also the matter of what Quenneville was told during a May 2010 meeting about Aldrich’s alleged misconduct in McDonough’s office. Quenneville said he was summoned while the meeting already was in progress.

“They asked me did I know about a video coach hanging around the Rockford players,” he told Strickland. “I didn’t know anything about it. And they told me he was hanging around the Rockford players.”

Beach and another former Hawk who leveled allegations against Aldrich (and who has a separate negligence lawsuit pending against the team) played for the “Black Aces,” a squad of prospects that traveled with the team during the playoffs in case of injuries.

Quenneville said he was told that Aldrich “was socializing, they were going out to bars, and he might have sent an inappropriate text or two and that he was bugging (Beach). And that’s all I know.

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