A bizarre season for the OHL’s Flint Firebirds has ended in perhaps inevitable fashion as owner Rolf Nilsen was handed a five-year suspension by the league on Wednesday.
Junior hockey owner who fired the same coaches twice gets banned from the league for 5 years
The year-long drama may have found a resolution.
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In a statement, OHL commissioner David Branch justified the ruling by finding Nilsen “has on several occasions violated an agreement he signed ... between himself and the OHL.”
The statement lays out Nilsen’s punishments as follows:
- Rolf Nilsen be suspended by the OHL from being involved directly or indirectly with hockey operations of the Flint Firebirds for five (5) years effective immediately;
- The Flint Firebirds forfeit a first round draft pick in the 2016 OHL Priority Selection (third pick overall);
- A fine be paid by Rolf Nilsen to the League in the amount of Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars ($250,000.00);
If the Flint Firebirds sound familiar to you, it’s because they’ve been all over the news this season due to off-ice drama. Nilsen fired his coaching staff in November partly because they didn’t give his son enough playing time. In response, the players revolted, threatened to quit the team and Nilsen was forced to re-hire the staff.
And then Nilsen fired those coaches again in February. That led to the OHL suspending Nilsen and his staff and ordering professional counseling for the players (some of whom are as young as 15 years old) in the meantime.
Things have gotten so bad in Flint that OHL draft-eligible players and their families are threatening not to report if Flint drafts them this summer.
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