Former Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville's NHL return is all sorts of gray

The Chicago Blackhawks' three-time Stanley Cup-winning former head coach, Joel Quenneville, will be back behind an NHL bench as the Anaheim Ducks hired him to fill their vacancy.

It is a controversial decision given that the first Stanley Cup he won will forever be tainted after the role he played in the Brad Aldrich scandal.

First, it should forever be referred to as the Brad Aldrich scandal, as he was the video coach who was alleged to have assaulted former first-round pick Kyle Beach during the Hawks' run toward winning the Stanley Cup in 2010. Aldrich is the alleged perpetrator, Beach the victim. It is not scandalous for a victim to report an alleged crime.

That is not being woke, that is just pointing out, usually, it is the accused who is in the scandal's title, not the accuser.

Joel Quenneville has admitted he deserves blame for not doing enough to appropriately handle the situation. However, the Ducks and Quenneville seem to be downplaying what is detailed in the outside independent investigation the Blackhawks paid Jenner & Block to conduct.

It is being reported by ESPN's Emily Kaplin that the team also reached out to Beach. The Ducks do deserve credit for doing a thorough background check and making sure Beach was taken into account before hiring Coach Q.

Quenneville also said he spoke with Beach while Joel was indefinitely suspended by the NHL for his role in the cover-up and before today's announcement. It has not been confirmed that he got a blessing or forgiveness, but the Ducks have said Quenneville will be reaching out to local advocacy groups.

Assuming Quenneville is willing to help the mission of these advocacy groups for sexual assault and abuse victims, it is another logical step of contrition.

If that is the case, there is nothing wrong with Quenneville returning to the NHL if he truly put in the work to learn from his mistake. If Beach has blessed Joel's return, and other advocacy groups in the area are fine, then he deserves a second chance to work in hockey again.

Whether the mistake was not doing enough like he claims or he truly did not want the Aldrich issue being a distraction as the team went for the Stanley Cup, if he has done the work to be a better person, he has the right to make a living in his chosen profession.

Where it gets sticky is, does he really have to be back as a head coach?

Remember, being an NHL head coach is a privilege, not a right, and the moment Beach's account was tossed aside, Quenneville violated that privilege. There are only 32 of these jobs.

Quenneville could still be involved with an NHL team as a consultant. He would be great at helping teams implement policies and practices to address situations like with what happened in 2010. He would be great at training the rest of the coaches on the need to listen to a player and appropriately address when something as bad as what happened to Kyle Beach could take place.

He could even work on helping the league work with advocacy groups.

It is just hard to resolve that years of being quiet and only after an investigation details what happened is what finally got Joel to own up to his part in the situation. When he finally does own up to it, suddenly everything is okay, and he can be in charge of a locker room and the safety of the players that comes with it as some of his defenders would like you to believe.

At the end of the day, under his watch, the safety of his players was put in jeopardy. It is one reason he was likely indefinitely suspended from the NHL and resigned as head coach of the Florida Panthers once the Jenner report came out.

Although this alleged crime took place 15 years ago, the Hawks quietly let Aldrich leave the franchise instead of reporting him to authorities, and that kept Aldrich a free man. A man who eventually sexually assaulted a teenage hockey player. You cannot say he allegedly did it, as he was charged with a crime and he pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct with a minor.

The Blackhawks' leadership at the time, which included Quenneville, did not take the allegations seriously enough because a Stanley Cup had to be won. That actually led to an even worse crime being committed.

That gets swept under the rug if you win a Stanley Cup. It is why Stan Bowman, the Hawks general manager in 2010 and also implicated in the Jenner report in the cover up, is back in the NHL running the Edmonton Oilers.

All that is needed is an apology, and suddenly the desperation for a Stanley Cup weighs more than the big picture of these men failing a basic tenet of their job that led to something even worse happening

That is why Quenneville's hiring feels gross to some.

Maybe had he done some more work, like consulting with teams, giving some talks to coaches about how to handle these types of allegations, before getting hired again to coach a team, then there would at least be a trail of a man committed to righting a wrong. Right now, all he has done is an interview last year and made some comments at a press conference that this will never happen again.

Instead, there is a team saying they did a background check and feel comfortable hiring him, when it seems pretty clear, they wanted to hire Joel Quenneville to win hockey games.

It is just words and no action. Then again, it sounds like Quenneville did take some good steps toward redemption. That is why this is all sorts of grey.