Joe Quenneville, a day late and actually 11 years late, resigned as his head coach, although he is now with the Florida Panthers. Quenneville was allowed to sit behind the bench for Wednesday's Cats game, even though he had been on TSN for an hour. The NHL had to suspend Quenneville pending a review, making it yet another horrible sight. Is it worth losing one October game? We keep asking ourselves this question: Was it worth it?
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Quenneville is an example of the pitfalls and evils of coaches seeing everything as binary. They either help or hinder a team's success. It's been seen in football, where coaches spend 18 hours a days in their offices. It could be that coaches don't see their players as more than tools. This is what we saw in the NWSL. Q was adamant that his job and life were judged by wins and losses. Any threat to these wins had to be quelled, countered and squashed.
Quenneville may not learn, but he's unlikely to have a job for the rest of his life. We can only hope. It doesn't matter if Quenneville learns, as he is likely out of a job for life now (we can only hope). What matters is that coaches, both current and future, understand that their job is to see the bigger picture, the real implications of coaching. Their players are people at all times, regardless of how small or large they may feel. They can endanger a life. They are more than just a field worker. If they lose sight of that, they will lose their jobs.
Anyone who is already sitting behind a bench or will soon be will see that Quenneville has been removed from the Hall of Fame. No one will mention Quenneville's three championships last night. Then again, his cowardly ducking of journalists last night and his quotes about Kyle Beach will also be highlighted. We don't know if human compassion is enough to motivate people to do the right things, but we also know it can be difficult when there are no chips.
