Former Vancouver Canucks employee Rachel Doerrie alleged the team and assistant GM Emilie Castonguay discriminated against her.
Doerrie filed a human rights complaint with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal on Nov. 22 and shared the document on Twitter Sunday evening. She alleged that her sex, mental and physical disabilities played a role in her termination on Sept. 27.
Castonguay is specifically named in the complaint “because of the central role she played in the termination of Ms. Doerrie’s employment,” said the document, written by Peter Gall, Doerrie's counsel. The Canucks are also named as a respondent.
Doerrie alleged that Castonguay grew “cold” towards her after Doerrie was promoted to the coaching staff as an analyst and assistant to the video coach. That eventually led to Castonguay allegedly saying to Doerrie, “I don’t know if you have what it takes to do the job, mentally.”
“Ms. Doerrie suffered damage to her dignity, self-esteem, and physical and mental health resulting from Ms. Castonguay's comments, and her subsequent treatment by Ms. Castonguay,” the document alleged. “She also suffered financial losses arising from her unexpected loss of employment.”
The Vancouver Canucks have been a slightly more competitive team in recent games, going 5-4-1 in their past 10 contests. But that’s not nearly enough to justify Canucks management choosing to go to battle with the same group of talent for the rest of the season. This can’t be the second year of them fighting uphill through the final three-quarters of the year, only to fall short of a playoff berth.
Even then, even if they did beat the odds and clawed their way back through the Pacific Division’s bottom half, and did wind up earning a low post-season spot, does anyone not employed by the organization really believe the Canucks can do any sort of damage once they get to the end of the year?
It’s clear now, after nearly one-quarter of the season, that Vancouver simply does not have the depth of talent, particularly on defense, to be a serious Stanley Cup contender. And that means GM Patrik Allvin and president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford must take an axe to the roster, keeping a handful of young players and shearing off the rest for whatever they can get on the trade market.
That means veteran forwards Bo Horvat, Brock Boeser and Connor Garland should be on the trade block. That means veteran defenseman Tyler Myers should join them there. Only Myers has a no-movement clause in his contract, but as per Cap Friendly, that’s only a modified NTC, with Myers able to submit a list of 10 teams he can’t be dealt to.
When the tireless advocates for a complete rebuild of the Vancouver Canucks talk about blowing up the team, they aren’t envisioning the franchise president doing it on radio.
But the blast from Jim Rutherford’s blunt assessment of the Canucks’ 3-6-3 start was still reverberating around the team, 4,000 kilometres away, as they prepared Tuesday to try to save their season when they open a five-game trip against the Ottawa Senators.
Head coach Bruce Boudreau, who seems halfway down the plank protruding over shark-infested waters from the SS Canucks, spent nearly all of his morning media availability responding to questions about Rutherford’s criticism of “structure” and player performance during a Monday afternoon appearance on Sportsnet 650 radio in Vancouver.
“Listen, I'm not going to get into an argument of whether we do or whether we don't (have structure),” Boudreau said. “We play as hard as we can, we do as well as we can and we lay it all out on the line, I think, every night. That's what I can tell you.
“It is what it is, right? I try to keep the noise out and keep the noise out of the room as much as possible and just focus on what we have to do at hand, and that's win a hockey game. So that's our focus tonight.”
Ethan Bear and Lane Pederson were traded to the Vancouver Canucks by the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday.
Carolina received a fifth-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft.
Bear, a defenseman, has not played an NHL game this season. He had 14 points (five goals, nine assists) in 58 games for Carolina last season and did not play in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The 25-year-old signed a one-year, $2.2 million contract with Carolina on July 28 and can become a restricted free agent after the season.
"We're pleased to have added an established defenceman to our blueline," Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin said of Bear. "It gives the coaching staff another option with his right shot, his ability to move pucks, and his ability to get the puck out of our own end quick. His transition game has been something that I've watched over the years that I like."
Ilya Mikheyev scored his first two goals of the season and the Vancouver Canucks ended their season-opening losing streak at a franchise-record seven games, beating the Seattle Kraken 5-4 on Thursday night.
Elias Pettersson, Andrei Kuzmenko and Conor Garland each had a goal and had an assist to help coach Bruce Boudreau reach 600 NHL victories. Garland scored the winner into an empty net.
“Just to to hear the music in the (locker) room and knowing how hard they’ve practiced and they’ve never given up hope,” Boudreau said. “... The spirit has never been down where we’ve gone into a game and gone, ‘Oh, woe is me.’ So I think it was a great reward for them.”
Something has to give when you start the season 0-5-2. And unfortunately for Boudreau, who took over from Travis Green last December after a similarly ugly 8-15-2 start, the easiest thing might be canning the coach.
“There’s been a number of tough years in Vancouver. Everyone’s frustrated,” Canucks president Jim Rutherford said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “Certainly when you have a record like we do, sometimes you get put in a position that you don’t want to be in.”
After all, we all knew the Canucks weren’t going to challenge for a Stanley Cup this year. But after Boudreau went 32-15-10 last year — a 106-point pace — the hope was that they would challenge for a playoff spot. At the very least, they should be competitive. Not setting records for blown multi-goal leads or getting blown out by the Buffalo Sabres. Or playing so poorly that fans were tossing jerseys and booing the team off the ice in the home opener. ...
This is the worst start in the franchise’s history. The Canucks are the only team in the NHL without a win. And that’s in a league where Arizona, Chicago and others are trying to tank for a chance at drafting top prospect Connor Bedard.
“I don’t want to say I’m not surprised what’s happened here,” said Rutherford. “I am surprised that we haven’t won a game at this point, but I‘m not totally surprised at what’s going on.”
Well, at least we’re guaranteed another couple of days without martial law on the West Coast.
After terrorizing the fan base with their performance, and the spectacularly quotable criticisms by their coach and president in their home-opener on Saturday, the Vancouver Canucks had a more noble 3-2 loss Monday to the formidable Carolina Hurricanes.
But it was still wholly unsatisfactory, as Vancouver dipped to 0-5-2 and remain the National Hockey League’s only winless team.
And the worst part of what could have been a bounceback night for the franchise, was that yet again the game was there for the Canucks in the third period, tied 1-1, only to have them yield easy goals to Sebastian Aho and Jesper Fast on the second and third shifts of the final frame.
In their seven games, the Canucks have been outscored 17-2 after the second intermission.
JT Miller on his reaction to fans throwing their jerseys on Saturday: I didn’t have one after the game, and I still don’t have one. If they want to throw their shit on the ice, that’s up to them. #Canucks@Sportsnet650
The Vancouver Canucks have never had a home-opener like this one. Has anybody?
In their first game in front of their paying fans, 11 days into a season in which everyone in the organization believes the National Hockey League playoffs are the baseline goal, the Canucks lost 5-1 Saturday to the Buffalo Sabres and were booed off the ice at Rogers Arena.
Three times late in a listless third period, when the Canucks barely competed despite trailing only 2-1 when it began, Vancouver jerseys had to be scraped off the ice after being discarded like trash by fans who have seen too many losses over too many seasons.
After a winless five-game road trip to start the year, the Canucks are 0-4-2. They have 40 home games remaining. Forty!
A jersey on the ice was the symbolic last straw for the Jim Benning-Travis Green era last season. Both were fired on Dec. 5, the evening after the Canucks came home from a long road trip and were beaten 4-1 by the Pittsburgh Penguins on a Hockey-Night-in-Canada Saturday night.
The new regime, headed by president Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin, can’t possibly wait until December if this continues.
“Tonight yeah, we did have two good periods. And just sh*t the bed pretty much (in the third),” Tanner Pearson said.
Bruce Boudreau said he was happy with how his team played in the first two periods.
“(The first) was the way we wanted to play, it was a very low scoring, low chance period … and then I thought we had a great second period and I think the game plan for the third period was fine,” he said. “But I mean, it did look like we started to, I don’t know what word I’m looking for, like just sort of collapse, and we’re afraid to win and, they came at us pretty good. And we just didn’t handle it very well.”
After a game in which he gave away the puck on a critical shorthanded goal against, then had it bounce over his stick on the opposition’s winning goal, J.T. Miller cut off a question about his level of frustration: “I've been on for all eight f------ goals. I'm pretty frustrated.”
Only three of those goals-against were on Sunday, when the Vancouver Canucks blew another multi-goal lead and lost 3-2 to the Philadelphia Flyers. But Miller has been on the ice for all eight goals surrendered in what is close to becoming another alarming start for his National Hockey League team.
In the Canucks’ season-opener Wednesday in Edmonton, Miller witnessed first-hand the five straight goals the Oilers poured in to win 5-3 after trailing 3-0.
Of course, the Oilers have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, two of the best players on the planet. The Flyers do not. They don’t even have Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek anymore.
But just like on Wednesday, the Canuck power play surrendered a shorthanded, tying goal late in the second period before the home team won it late in the third. With a slow grounder trickling towards the Canucks’ goal, Miller saw the puck bounce over his blade in front of goalie Thatcher Demko, who was easily beaten by Travis Konecny when the Flyer surprised him by skating out from behind the net.
Vancouver, B.C. - Vancouver Canucks General Manager Patrik Allvin announced today that the club has acquired defenceman Riley Stillman from the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for forward Jason Dickinson and a 2024 second round draft pick.
Stillman, 24, appeared in 52 games with Chicago last season, recording a career-high 12 points (2-10-12) and 36 penalty minutes. He also registered 67 blocked shots, ranking fifth on the team, and led all Blackhawks defencemen in hits per 60 minutes (9.34).
In 108 career regular season games split between Chicago and Florida, Stillman has 18 points (3-15-18) and 68 penalty minutes. The 6'1", 196-pound defenceman also appeared in three playoff games with the Panthers during the 2020 qualifying round.
A native of Peterborough, Ontario, Stillman was originally selected by the Florida Panthers in the fourth round, 114th overall in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft.
