After his lifetime ban over Quinngate was amended he was forbidden from coaching for three years.
NHL President John Ziegler expelled and banned Pat Quinn for life from the NHL for conduct prejudicial to the league during the infamous Quinngate affair. How soon we forget.
If it was only an isolated incident, it may have been possible to just say it was an error in judgment; but this was one of three major ethical lapses by Quinn as a coach and manager.
Pat Quinn was coach of the LA Kings during the 1986-87 season. While still coaching that team, under contract to the Kings and negotiating with the Kings for a contract extension of his coaching contract, he entered into mid-season negotiations with the Vancouver Canucks.
On December 11, 1986 he reached an agreement in principle with Vancouver to become GM and President. On December 24,1986 he signed a contract with Vancouver to commence on June 1,1987 as President and GM. On January 2, 1987 while coaching LA and while in Vancouver to play the Canucks, an envelope containing a cheque for $100,000 was delivered to him by a Canuck trainer to seal the deal while he was conducting a practice in preparation for the upcoming game with the Canucks. At that point in the season LA and Vancouver were locked in a struggle to make the play-offs.
Quinn then returned to LA and arranged a lunch with Rogie Vachon, GM of the Kings. Vachon assumed the meeting was to finalize and sign Quinn's coaching contract extension. When Quinn told Vachon he had signed with the Canucks (but not about the $100,000 payment), Vachon was flabbergasted and stormed out of the restaurant, immediately calling Jerry Buss, the owner. After a few days delay, Buss called John Zeigler who became involved.
Meanwhile rumours of the Quinn signing were surfacing in the Vancouver media. Zeigler then called Canucks owner who was in Hawaii on vacation who confirmed the signing and revealed that Quinn had received the $100,00 signing bonus to seal the deal.
Zeigler was outraged and immediately expelled Pat Quinn from the NHL for dishonourable conduct on January 9, 1987. Pat Quinn would later say he never even considered how the public might perceive his conduct in accepting a $100,000 signing bonus from the Vancouver Canucks while he was still under contract to the Los Angeles Kings. He said that he felt that he had done nothing wrong. This from a person (Quinn), who had just completed his law degree and was in the process of seeking admission to the California State Bar.
The statement from Ziegler expelling Quinn said:
"Mr. Quinn is directly responsible for the preparation and conduct of the Los Angeles Kings' NHL game competitions. Despite these responsibilities, he has committed himself to assume the responsibilities of a general manager for a competing team in this league, has accepted money from them and yet has continued to attempt to discharge his responsibilities to the Los Angeles Kings. Effective immediately, and until further notice to the contrary, Mr. Patrick Quinn is expelled from the National Hockey League and may not be employee by any member club of the league or involved in any further activities on behalf of the league or any of its member clubs."
Zeigler then appointed NHL chief legal counsel, Gil Stein to investigate the case fully and report back to him. After reviewing the report Ziegler fined the Vancouver Canucks $310,000 which represented 31 days from the time of the agreement in principle of December 11, 1986 until Quinn was expelled by Ziegler. Quinn was banned from joining the Canucks as GM until after the both LA and Vancouver were out of the play-offs and prohibited from coaching for three years.
The Canucks and Quinn appealed the decision to the league Board of Governors and the appeal was dismissed. They then appealed to the BC Supreme Court. The Justice ruled that Ziegler had overstepped his bounds by fining the Canucks for 31 separate counts each at $10,000 per day and reduced the fine to $10,000. However he ruled that Ziegler was wholly within his jurisdiction to deal with Quinn in the manner he had done and declined to interfere in the discipline meted out by Ziegler to Pat Quinn.
A reporter would later ask Quinn, if his decision to accept the Canucks' overture was out of character, Quinn said: "I'd like to think that's the case."
Unfortunately it appears totally in character as, during his court appeal, evidence was filed showing that he had connived to keep his former contract to coach the Kings secret after being fired by the Flyers in 1985. By keeping the Kings contract-signing secret, he was able to obtain a further $50,000 as damages from the Flyers for his firing. Had he been truthful, he would not legally have been entitled to that payment. The Flyers management were furious when they learned of his deception and the Kings were not blameless either as they conspired with him to keep the deal under wraps. The Kings then should not have been surprised when Quinn did the same thing to them – they knew his predilections.
Interestingly Quinngate came back to haunt Quinn during the Vladimir Krutov transfer fee dispute hearing held in Stockholm which ended up costing the Canucks about $1.3 million when the Arbitrator found Vancouver liable for the last two years of the transfer fee payments to the Russian Ice Hockey authorities for signing Krutov. Quinn’s credibility was destroyed when he was unable to explain to the satisfaction of the Arbitrator how it was that the Canucks were also reneging on the transfer fee payments for Igor Larionov although they had not cut him from the team.
In a desperate last minute maneuver to shore up their crumbling case, the Canucks mere days before the hearing paid up the missed Larionov payments and in fact pre-paid the next installments. Quinn had loudly proclaimed his honesty and integrity when trying to explain the Larionov situation. Once Quinn did that, he opened up his character to question and the whole sordid Quinngate affair was laid out for the Arbitrator to see.
The Canucks defense to not paying the transfer fees for Krutov rested on two grounds. Firstly the Krutov standard NHL playing contract with the Vancouver Canucks was collateral to the transfer fee agreement (sort of sub-contract). The Canucks claimed that Krutov by allegedly breaching that contract by not being in shape as alleged by the Canucks, resulted in the Canucks being able to avoid the further transfer fees under the contract with the Russian authorities (of course the Larionov transfer fee situation did not go a long way to helping the Canucks case).
The Canucks missed the major requirement to claim this was a collateral contract – Krutov was not party to the transfer fee agreement and as the Arbitrator pointed out it was first year law student knowledge that collateral contracts must be between the same parties. Interestingly neither Burke with his law degree from Harvard nor Quinn with his just completed law degree from the University of Philadeplhia picked up on this rather obvious defect in their case. DUH!
The second defense was that Quinn alleged that he had an oral promise from the Russians that they would forgive the last two years of the transfer fees if either Krutov or Larionov did not stay with the team. The Russians denied that they had ever made such a promise. Again basic contract law generally prevents a party from going outside the signed contract clauses and like most contracts it also provided that all previous negotiations, discussions and agreements are void. Quinn then tried to claim that in fact this promise was given after the contracts were all signed and again the Russians denied this occurred. Again courts do not usually allow such claims but there are some exceptions. Even if an exception were to be made, it would require Quinn’s word to be preferred against that of the Russian negotiators. Given Quinngate and Quinn’s own abysmal performance in explaining the Larionov transfer fee situation, the Arbitrator had little trouble in dismissing Quinn’s credibility out of hand.
This portion of Quinn’s testimony under cross-examination by counsel for the Russian hockey authorities is priceless and it was published in the Vancouver Province on February 26, 1992 under the headline QUINN: 'WE MESSED UP HERE' - THE KRUTOV RULING: THE TRANSCRIPTS
Edited transcripts of Vancouver attorney Randy Wittchen, representing the Soviets, cross-examining Pat Quinn on circumstances of club missing agreed-upon transfer payments to Soviets for Igor Larionov.
Wittchen: Are you aware that there were problems with the November (1991) payment with Larionov?
Quinn: No.
Wittchen: Were you aware of a newspaper article that appeared in Vancouver Province December 31?
Quinn: Now that you mention it, Burke did make it known to me. And apparently Faminoff, through a local reporter, indicated that there was a problem with the payment.
Wittchen (introducing Province story as evidence): This is a report from Mr.(Tony) Gallagher of The Province dated December 31, 1991 . . . Are you aware that one of your officials of your organization on January 1, 1992 gave an interview to another reporter (Vancouver Sun reporter Elliott Pap) that in fact this was untrue, all payments were up to date on Larionov?
Quinn: It was our assumption that we were on time; I don't do the accounting, I don't stay on top of each cheque that goes out.
Wittchen: This direction to your bank, I notice your name appears here but not your signature. Can you identify the signatures that are on here?
Quinn: One is (director of finance) Carlos Mascarenhas and the other is (Brian) Burke (who was representing the Canucks as counsel at the hearing).
Wittchen: In fact on Dec. 31, 1991 the Vancouver Canucks were in arrears is that correct?
Quinn: Yes.
Wittchen: I will suggest to you that the only reason this payment was made is because it was very embarrassing at this hearing.
Quinn: I disagree with that. We have messed up on payment in June (1990) and we messed up here . . . the fact that you have suggested we weren't going to be paying our debt is offensive.
Wittchen: This is for the amount of $206,250. What does that represent?
Quinn: A lot of money.
Wittchen: . . . Do you know what schedule of payments that represents?
Quinn: I assume the final ones according to the schedule.
Wittchen: If you look at the transfer fee agreement there are certain scheduled fees, and the schedule of fees are July 10, 1991, Nov. 10, 1991, Jan. 10, 1992 and March 10, 1992.
Quinn: November was missed. What does Gallagher or Faminoff say?
Wittchen: The information that we had is that two payments, the July (1990) and November payments, have been missed, were late, hadn't been made on time. But interestingly enough this (the Canucks' fee transfer) seems to be for more than is due and owing. . . . Does that not suggest that this was a pre-payment of the March 1992 payment?
Quinn: It appears likely.
Wittchen: I will suggest to you that the only reason these payments were made was in response to that newspaper article and to rehabilitate what had gone on with Larionov whom you admitted has played fine. You haven't had a problem . . . The first four (payments) were made in a timely fashion, is that correct?
Quinn: To my knowledge, yes. I was made aware of this story by Gallagher, I believe I was in Los Angeles at the time it came out.
Wittchen: Did not an official of your organization on January 1, 1992 state to reporter Elliott Pap of the Vancouver Sun that everything was up to date and it (the Gallagher story) was untrue? Were you aware of that?
Quinn: No . . . Since I have been on the road as a coach, I very seldom get to see a lot of these sorts of things and any responses that are made in the papers in Vancouver often are missed . . .
Quinn was President and GM and Krutov and Larionov at the time were the most expensive players under contract to the Canucks and they were in fact the only two player contracts that Quinn had ever negotiated according to his own evidence. Do you not find it incredible he did not know precisely what was going on regarding the missed transfer fees? The Arbitrator certainly did when he hammered the Canucks in his award.
