Posts Tagged ‘Gatineau Olympiques’

A Few Things from a Groulx Interview in Ottawa

June 4, 2010 - By
A Few Things from a Groulx Interview in Ottawa

There’s an eight minute interview with Benoit Groulx on Team 1200 Radio in Ottawa where he talks a little bit about what made him leave and go back to his former job.  It’s almost time to move on from this story, but this gives us a little more insight.  Groulx is obviously very focused on his new job as Coach and GM and would rather talk about that but he shares a few things.

You can listen to the interview here, I couldn’t find a way to embed it.  You do not need to be signed in to Facebook to listen.

A few of the points:

* Jacques Martin hired him and was “very good” and Randy Sexton supported him “very well.”

* He mentions the continued changes in management in Florida and even changes in Rochester and he said he felt his place wasn’t in Rochester anymore.  The only change in Rochester management was Ted Nolan.  hmmm.. should we read into that?

* One of the big things that made him want to leave as well was to be closer to his family, especially his 10 year old son.

* He said that there’s a price to pay [...]Read More

Three Awesome Words: Benoit Groulx Resigns

June 1, 2010 - By

The news broke on Monday that Benoit Groulx had resigned as Rochester Americans head coach and returned to his prior position, coach of the Gatineau Olympiques of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.  From the QMJHL press release, “Under his reign, the Olympics won three championships in six seasons. Groulx led the team to three appearances at the MasterCard Memorial Cup where the Olympics reached the final on two occasions in 2003 and 2004.”

There’s no hiding the fact that Groulx was not very liked as the coach of the Amerks so this news was a perfect way to get the summer started.  The players disliked playing for him, the teams management did not understand him at times, everyone questioned his decisions during games and all of that led to the fans chanting for him to leave at the last game of the year.

A bigger issue at hand could be that the Amerks management found out about this through the media, not from the Florida Panthers directly.  Groulx’s resignation would have been approved by the Panthers so he could officially take on the new job, but no phone call was made to anyone with the Amerks.  Interesting.  Just [...]Read More