With the Cold Lake Jr. B Ice apparently taking steps to “come clean” regarding the controversial firing of former head coach and general manager Neil Langridge earlier this month, several unhappy former board members, as well as members of the organization's former coaching staff came forward last week, stating they are still none the wiser as to why the three-time championship winning coach was relieved of his duties.
In last week's edition of the Bonnyville Nouvelle, new Cold Lake Ice President Jolayne Wilson and the team's vice-president of hockey operations Corey Broadhead gave a detailed account of everything that has happened with the organization over the course of the past month.
The duo spoke about everything from when the decision was first made to get rid of Langridge, even attempting to address the much-publicized fallout following the verdict passed down by the board, but, even after all of that, one question still remains – why did this all happen?
“I still don't even know what happened with the whole getting rid of Neil situation, and I was on the board at the time,” said the organization's former treasurer Melissa Dort, who stepped away from her position in early November following what she describes as the board's “crazy decision” to fire Langridge.
“To this day we still don't have any real answers or any real information. We have nothing. I guess why this all happened is the question on my and everybody else's mind right now,” Dort added.
That was also the question on everyone's lips at an impromptu meeting on Friday between the Nouvelle and former longtime board members Terri Bosse, Sheri Restau and Doris Langridge and former Ice assistant coaches Corey Wandler and Brad Paice.
“To this day, Neil does not know why he was fired. He doesn't know why he was let go mid-season, none of us do,” said Bosse. “He was never presented with his termination papers, he hasn't had any correspondence with the board whatsoever, and I think that's what stinks most about this entire situation is the fact that we still do not know why it happened.”
When quizzed last week about why, as a board, the organization decided to relieve Langridge of his duties, Wilson said the decision ultimately came as a result of “several discrepancies”, including financial concerns, apparent player unrest and performance related issues. Broadhead even went as far as to say he had “serious concerns” for the future of the franchise if a change was not made.
“I can't help but feel like there is a hidden agenda here somewhere, something serious has happened (at the board level) that they're keeping quiet about and not telling us,” Bosse added. “I just feel so sorry for Neil – he has put his heart and soul into this organization over the past ten years and now all that hard work is gone, and for what? I feel like we keep repeating ourselves, but we still do not know.”
Speaking at the meeting last week over the phone, Dort said she couldn't help but agree with Bosse that “something was up.” As a member of the board at the time, Dort says she wasn't made aware of the organization's dismissal of Langridge until two days after the decision was made.
“First and foremost, I want to make it clear that I wasn't a part of Neil being fired. I was unable to attend the board meeting (on Oct. 27) where the decision was made to get rid of Neil,” Dort said. “I found out through social media and other people – I didn't actually hear from anybody else involved with the team for two days until I called Corey Broadhead and he confirmed that Neil was gone.”
“I have no idea at all what has happened to lead the board into thinking getting rid of Neil was the right thing to do. At the beginning of this year, when we signed him to a new two-year contract, there was one, maybe two members that had a (disliking) for Neil, but that was for personal reasons. There was a lot of support on the board for Neil other than that, so I did not see this coming at all. It's all very shocking to me,” Dort added.
Having just recently joined the board alongside other members such as the team's now former president Brett Peat, who stepped away from his role back in October citing “ridiculous boardroom politics”, earlier this summer, Dort says her ordeal with the Cold Lake Ice has left a very bitter taste in her mouth.
“The more you hear about this story, the worse it sounds,” Dort said. “In my opinion, this should have been handled totally differently than it was. There should have been a set process (the organization) had to go through to remove Neil. This decision was made hastily on one night, something just doesn't add up.”
One of the main issues the group has is regarding how the team's new head coach Paul Desjardins came to be offered the job. Earlier this month, Broadhead claimed that he received calls from “several residents” concerned with the way the team was performing this season. He goes on to state that these individuals were interested in attending a board meeting in the future, where they wanted to bring in their own head coach to “fix” a perceived deteriorating on-ice product.
Looking back through the records and speaking to Doris Langridge, who was in attendance at the initial meeting when the decision was made to fire her son, Bosse said the only people in attendance other than the board were Bob Lamoureux, a known associate of Desjardins, Desjardins' wife and another known friend of the team's new head coach.
“As soon as I saw that they were there, I knew something was up,” Doris said.
With the organization claiming the discussion and eventual decision to fire Langridge “came out of nowhere” that night, Bosse is wondering why there were three people in attendance with close ties to Desjardins.
“The entire situation just seems to be too coincidental. Too convenient,” Bosse said. “The new board comes in and out of nowhere a decision is passed down to fire Neil, then similarly out of nowhere the decision is made to re-hire Paul Desjardins.”
Another one of the things that has irked the three former board members is the insinuation from the new board that the team's finances are out of control, with Wilson claiming them to be a “total mess” earlier this month.
“I'll be honest, when we first got involved with the Ice all those years ago, the debt was scary,” Bosse said. “We had around ($85,000) in debt and we worked so, so hard to reduce that to what it is today, so for (the new board) to say the financials are a mess does nothing but insult the work we've done to bring this organization back (from the brink of folding).”
“For (the new board) to keep referring to money being thrown away, or the team's finances being a total mess, that really upsets me because we did everything we humanly could, raising money ourselves, everything and anything to bring this team out of debt,” Restau said. “I think going from $85,000 worth of debt to $25,000 in the time we did, while supporting a successful team is pretty good.”
As treasurer, Dort was the one tasked with sorting out the organization's books and while she admits there was some debt the team was still yet to pay off, it certainly isn't the “messy situation” it's being painted as.
“These books are nowhere near as much of a disaster as people have been saying, and they're definitely not the mess they're being painted to be,” Dort said. “Is money tight with the Ice? Yes, of course it is. Whenever you're trying to come out of that much debt, it's going to be tight.”
She added, “The thing is though is that debt has been reduced year upon year and those previously involved with the team were working towards clearing that debt. So to say the finances are a mess is an insult (to all the work previous board members have put in).”
Following Langridge's dismissal, both Wandler and Paice were thrown in at the deep end, tasked with temporarily steadying the ship from a player perspective while also dealing with their own emotions following the controversial firing.
Breaking their silence following the ordeal, the pair, who have since walked away from the organization, said everybody from the players to the fans have been left “devastated” by the board's decisions over the past month.
“The team were just devastated (after they learned of Langridge's departure),” Wandler said. “They felt hung out to dry and they were hurt by the decision. I think they're still hurt by it.”
He added, “The night this all went down, when Neil was pretty much told he was fired in the middle of a practice, there were a lot of emotions flying around, the boys were upset, they were shocked. People didn't know what had happened, it hadn't really sunk in yet, and I still don't think it has.”
Looking back, Wandler said he isn't sure how things ended up the way they did, especially after what he described as “immediate regret” from some board members after the initial decision was made.
“From what I understand, after this all happened, the board gathered again and the word going around was that they had made a decision based on mis-information and they wanted to bring Neil back,” Wandler said. “So I guess the team set up a meeting (for Nov. 10) when myself, Brad and Neil arrived not really knowing what to expect.”
At that meeting, rather than apologize and offer Neil his job back as Dort believed the board was going to do, a new member Shawn Metchewais proceeded to question Langridge on what Wandler described as “board related issues.”
“The issues brought up at that meeting we all attended wasn't about the six players the board claimed had threatened to leave, it wasn't about anything to do with the coaching aspects of hockey, it was all on the board and business side of things, which quite frankly had absolutely nothing to do with us,” Wandler said. “Why and how this all ended up being Neil's fault, how he's the victim here I'm not sure.”
Following that meeting when it was eventually decided that the board would not be bringing Langridge back into the fold, both Paice and Wandler resigned from their positions as assistant coaches, stating they wanted nothing more to do with the organization.
Today though, the entire situation still leaves the pair with more questions than answers.
“I think the worst thing about all of this is not having any closure,” Paice said. “We still have not had a reason why this has happened. Neil gave up a lot this summer because it's a big year with the Keystone Cup and, as the board said in the paper, in the end it's ‘concerned fans' that have changed this entire thing.
“At the end of the day, I think Neil deserves to be told why this has happened. He hasn't had one thank you from a board member publicly for everything he's done with the team. Now, in the eyes of (the public) it just looks like he did something catastrophic. Nobody has acknowledged this on a boardroom level and that's real frustrating for me. Neil has given up a lot for this organization and now these people, who haven't really been a part of anything, have come in and ruined it.”
Another interested spectator who has been following the situation is former Cold Lake Ice star forward and captain Dallas Ansell who, up until last month, had also been serving as a brand new member of the board.
In an attempt to clear up the situation regarding his departure, Ansell said his reason for leaving wasn't one he made by himself, as has been claimed by the organization, but instead came as a result of Broadhead asking him to step down so as to allow a new member to come in and take on an active role with the organization.
“I didn't really want to walk away, but I said if that's what you guys think is going to help, I'll take a step back and let somebody else take my spot,” Ansell said. “Four days later, they end up getting rid of Neil and it all just seems a little too coincidental to have just happened (as they claim it did).”
Having spent three years with the team playing under Langridge, Ansell said he's not sure why the board would cite coaching related issues as their reasoning for firing Langridge.
“I'm not exactly sure what triggered people into deciding that they wanted things to change, but I guess there were a few unhappy people who wanted to try and take things into their own hands and get rid of Neil,” Ansell said. “I think the thing that upsets most people is that nobody knows why this happened, or why things turned out the way they did.
“That's the one thing I'd like to question the board on is why, because they never really did give a solid answer. They didn't give any reasons, the entire thing just seemed a little rash, a little hurried,” Ansell added.
After enjoying a hugely successful Jr. B career under the tutelage of Langridge, Ansell strongly believes the coach had “everything it takes” to be a successful coach at the Jr. B level, something he believes was proven by the fact he led the Cold Lake Ice to three straight NEAJBHL championships from 2012 to 2014.
Looking back on everything, much in the same way as it has with Paice, Wandler and everyone else to have recently stepped away from the organization, Ansell said the entire situation has left him with a bitter taste in his mouth.
“The entire situation kinda leaves you with a bitter taste in your mouth, that's for sure. A lot of people have been put in uncomfortable situations after some pretty drastic decisions from the board. A few members felt like they were pressured to step aside due to some of those decisions and that's not how things should be done in my opinion,” Ansell said.
“Now I guess the team will sort of be starting over with a new coach. They could be successful, they might not be successful, but I think if this is how the board feel things should be done and they're willing to make decisions as they have as a board over the past couple of weeks without consulting people who maybe could have contributed to the decision and helped the situation, it kind of makes you not want to be involved with the team anymore.”
Now, the three ladies who spent the best part of a decade attempting to keep the Ice afloat feel as though all of their hard work has gone completely to waste.
“This was three, four years of really, really hard work and now it's gone,” Doris Langridge said.
“I'm heartbroken to see how things have ended up,” Restau said. “After spending almost ten years with the team, to see it end like this like makes me feel sick. I feel sad, angry and frustrated all at the same time that these people can do this after all the hard work people before them have put in.”
She added, “Things were looking so good, now it just feels like a slap to the face to Neil, a slap to the face to Corey and Brad and a slap to the face to all of us former board members who spent so long and dedicated so much time towards fixing this organization.”
Bosse believes the board should be held accountable for all of their actions over the past couple of weeks, while also commenting on the “awful” situation the Cold Lake Ice players have been left in following the ordeal.
“I would love to know who governs this board. Who do they have to answer to, because everything that has happened here over the past couple of weeks absolutely stinks,” Bosse said. “Somebody has to step in. The way some things have been handled over the past few weeks just aren't right. There's no documentation, no proof, nothing. It's all just too secretive for my liking.”
She added, “The most disappointing thing now is the boys have been left with such a bad situation. Once this is over with the Ice, their hockey careers for the most part are over. I really wish them well moving forward because I know how much this means to them and to have it all disrupted in a year they're supposed to be excited for with the Keystone Cup, is just awful.”
