ANAHEIM, Calif. – The Anaheim Ducks believe they have their answer at head coach, but it’s a hire that will also bring its share of questions.

Anaheim hired three-time Stanley Cup winning coach Joel Quenneville as the 12th head coach in franchise history on Thursday. A team news conference is set for later today.

This is the 66-year-old’s first job back in hockey in nearly four years in the wake of a report of improper handling of an alleged sexual assault by the 2010 Chicago Blackhawks.

“Today is a great day for the Anaheim Ducks,” Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek said in a statement. “Joel is a proven winner and one of the top coaches in NHL history. We believe this is a major step forward in our process of being a perennial playoff contender.”

Quenneville resigned as the coach of the Florida Panthers seven games into the 2021 season after details emerged of Chicago improperly handling allegations of sexual abuse by video coach Brad Aldrich of reserve player Kyle Beach in the Blackhawks’ 2010 Stanley Cup run.

For his role, Quenneville was banned from the NHL until reinstatement by commissioner Gary Bettman in July 2024.

Quenneville, who was a teammate of Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek with the Hartford Whalers for one season in 1989-1990, reportedly beat out former Edmonton Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft and former Vancouver Canucks coach Rick Tocchet as the final candidates for the position.

The Ducks said that the team conducted a “comprehensive review of what took place while Joel was head coach of the Blackhawks in 2010,” and ESPN’s Emily Kaplan reported that the Ducks spoke with Beach and other advocacy groups Quenneville worked with over the duration of his ban.

“We spoke with dozens of individuals, including advocates for positive change in hockey and leadership of the NHL, which last July officially cleared Joel to seek employment in the league,” Verbeek’s statement said. “Our findings are consistent with Joel’s account that he was not fully aware of the severity of what transpired in 2010. It is clear that Joel deeply regrets not following up with more questions at the time, has demonstrated meaningful personal growth and accountability, and has earned the opportunity to return to coaching.”

Quenneville, the now-oldest coach in the NHL, takes over a young Ducks squad–the fifth-youngest in the NHL last season–that posted a 21-point standings improvement with a 35-37-10 record in former coach Greg Cronin’s second season. Anaheim is eager to make the leap out of the rebuild process and into the playoffs.

“I’m excited to join the Anaheim Ducks,” Quenneville said in a statement. “This is the organization I wanted to restart my career with and am truly grateful for this opportunity. The Ducks have incredible ownership, management and passionate fans. In nearly four years away from the game, I have learned from my prior mistakes and realized it will be actions over words that demonstrate my commitment to being a better leader.”

Quenneville’s resume behind the bench is nearly unimpeachable.

The 66-year-old led the Chicago Blackhawks to three Stanley Cup championships in six seasons with titles in 2010, 2013 and 2015 and was an assistant on the 1996 Colorado Avalanche Cup-winning squad. 

With stops in St. Louis, Colorado, Chicago and Florida, Quenneville has collected the second-most regular-season wins by a coach in NHL history with his 969 only trailing the legendary Scotty Bowman’s 1,244.

Quenneville joined the Blackhawks in not a much dissimilar spot to where the Ducks are right now.

Chicago hadn’t made the playoffs in six years–Anaheim hasn’t qualified in seven seasons–and the Blackhawks posted a record of 26-43-13, 31-42-9 and 40-34-8 coming out of the 2004-05 lockout. Chicago drafted Jonathan Toews third overall in 2006 and Patrick Kane first overall in 2007 on the way to three Stanley Cups.

The only question on that side of the hire is how Quenneville has kept up with the league over his nearly four-year absence.

2010 Chicago Blackhawks Scandal

The bigger questions come from Quenneville’s role, responsibility and the fallout from Chicago’s improper handling of sexual assault allegations during its 2010 Stanley Cup championship run.

When rumors began to surface of Quenneville being a potential hire for Anaheim, there was significant negative fan reaction on social media, including a campaign filling out the team’s online comment box questioning how someone with a mark like Quenneville’s could be the right choice for a team with burgeoning young talent.

There were several incidents of attempted seduction, promises of power over roster decisions and threats of violence during these instances of alleged assault that are all detailed in the report.

Quenneville’s role entered the matter on May 23, 2010 after the Blackhawks had won the Western Conference Final and clinched their spot in the Stanley Cup Final.

Allegations of the assaults had worked their way up the Chicago food chain, which led to the second of two meetings with Blackhawks executives an hour after that Western Conference final game. The report states that president John McDonough, senior director of hockey administration Al MacIssac and general manager Stan Bowman among others began a meeting to discuss what had been learned about Aldrich with Quenneville coming into the meeting later.

The report states the participants in the meeting recall being told about an incident between Aldrich and Beach “involving an unwelcome sexual advance,” but no one recalled being told about the type of non-consensual sexual conduct.

“I didn’t know anything about it,” Quenneville said on The Cam and Strick Podcast in April 2024. “They told me that he was hanging around the Rockford players, they were socializing, they were going out to bars, and he might have sent an inappropriate text or two, and that he was bugging them. That’s all I knew. I didn’t put it all together that it resembled sexual abuse or sexual assault. 

“By not asking more questions, I take ownership on that. I think had I known more I think I could have handled it completely different.”

Bowman said that during the meeting, McDonough and Quenneville made note of “the challenge of getting to the Stanley Cup Finals and a desire to focus on the team and the playoffs.”

Team counselor Jim Gary, who spoke with Beach and raised the allegations, said that Quenneville appeared angry and was concerned about upsetting team chemistry, and Bowman said that Quenneville shook his head and said “It was going to be hard for the team to get where they wanted to go and they couldn’t deal with this issue right now,” according to the report.

In Quenneville’s interview in the report, he stated that “he did not recall anyone saying it was hard for the team to get where they were in the playoffs.”

As far as how that meeting ended and any decision to delay dealing with it until after the Stanley Cup Final, the report stated that there was “no evidence that any action was taken to address the issue until after the playoffs ended,” but a later meeting with the Director of Human Resources recalled that McDonough said the group decided to keep the alleged incident among themselves for the remainder of the playoff run.

There were also various reports of passing the buck up the chain of command. Bowman recalled that McDonough said to leave it to him, and Bowman believed the issue was in McDonough’s hands. Quenneville said that there was no resolution at the meeting.

“I don’t think there was anything resolved in that meeting,” Quenneville told The Cam and Strick Podcast. “I left the meeting with the understanding that they got it. That’s how it was left.”

After the Blackhawks won the 2010 Stanley Cup, Aldrich and Human Resources came to an agreement that he would resign in lieu of undergoing an investigation. Aldrich was still allowed to take part in the Cup celebrations, have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup and received a championship ring. Years later, Aldrich was convicted of criminal sexual conduct with a minor while coaching a high school team in Michigan.

There was a lawsuit filed in the Michigan case that alleged the Blackhawks had written a letter of recommendation for Aldrich. Chicago said that claim was “demonstrably false” and the suit was later dismissed

Quenneville did fill out a positive performance evaluation for Aldrich with a congratulatory note on winning the Stanley Cup, but Quenneville and the Jenner & Block report noted that there were similar boilerplate notes on other performance reviews.

“I basically had generic lines for them, knowing that everybody did a good job, and I knew nothing about what went on with Brad at all,” Quenneville said on the Cam and Strick Podcast.

Quenneville said he also didn’t know that Aldrich had been fired. He said he was told it was a mutual agreement, and he didn’t follow up saying he was “staying in my own lane.”

When the Jenner & Block report was released in October 2021, Quenneville was then coaching the Florida Panthers and immediately was on a plane to New York to speak with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

Qunneville told the Cam and Strick Podcast that reading the report on the flight to New York was the first time he had heard any details of the alleged incidents between Aldrich and Beach.

“Made me sick to my stomach,” Quenneville said. “Had I known what I found out when I read that article, it made me sick, I would’ve had no problem getting rid of Brad… It was unacceptable.”

In that meeting with Bettman, it was agreed Quenneville would resign from his position with Florida, and Bettman later levied a ban against Quennville, Bowman and MacIssac that lasted two and a half years. Bowman has since been hired as the general manager of the Edmonton Oilers.

In the wake of the report, the NHL had sent a memo that any abuse should be reported to the league’s hotline, and it was tips to that hotline that led to the investigation and resignation of Ducks general manager Bob Murray in November 2021 following notes of an “abusive culture” and complaints of verbal abuse. The Ducks then hired Pat Verbeek as general manager in February 2022.

Quenneville told the Cam and Strick Podcast that he had reached out to Beach after the report and it took a while for Beach to be comfortable with a conversation. Quenneville did not divulge any details of the conversation, but his daughter took to Twitter in May 2024 to defend her father and revealed that Beach called Quenneville after the podcast appearance and gave his blessing to coach again.

On the podcast, Quenneville said he done some work over the last few years to educate himself and learn how he could have handled it better.

“I should’ve asked more questions. I should’ve pushed to find out more, the seriousness of the matter,” Quenneville said. “Doing nothing about that’s on me, I own it… What I learned over this process was that I definitely didn’t handle it properly.”

Quenneville said he spoke with many people and groups, including Sheldon Kennedy of the Respect Group, which supports the prevention of bullying, abuse, harassment and discrimination; the Carnegie Initiative in Toronto, which works to ensure hockey is inclusive, supportive and welcoming to all; and Moe Hasham of Hockey 4 Youth, which seeks to increase social inclusion through hockey.

“I don’t want to go through all the stuff I did, but I did a lot and I talked to a lot of different people and learned how to handle it,” Quenneville said. “It’s been a very complex process.”

All of that has led to Quenneville joining the Anaheim Ducks, where Quenneville does receive his second chance with plenty of on-ice expectations and off-ice questions to be answered.