On Sunday, the Toronto Marlies, the AHL affiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs, announced that they had hired Dusty Imoo as their new goaltending coach. After a stint with the Los Angeles Kings in which he was credited with reviving the career of current Maple Leaf goalie Jack Campbell, Imoo was expected to make a similar impact with this organization.
The Toronto Marlies announced today the hiring of Dusty Imoo as the team’s Goaltending Coach.
Jon Elkin has been promoted within the organization into the role of Goaltender Evaluation and Development. pic.twitter.com/UEKDBRorm2
— Toronto Marlies (@TorontoMarlies) August 8, 2021
However, two days after the initial announcement, the Maple Leafs organization reversed the decision in a rather public and emphatic way, saying they “made a mistake” by not “following our organizational protocols.”
— Toronto Marlies (@TorontoMarlies) August 10, 2021
As for the specifics of how Imoo lost his job in a matter of two days, all one needs to do is look to his Twitterfeed. It did not take people very long to see a pattern of likes and retweets from Imoo on posts that appeared to endorse anti-Black and transphobic ideas, support eugenics, and approve of conspiracies around the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol building.
https://twitter.com/hockeynuisance/status/1424468108102848520
https://twitter.com/SteitzerJon/status/1424462039611703297
Imoo has deleted his Twitter account, but the damage was already done. It’s just a bit shocking no one noticed (or cared) beforehand.
It’s notable that Brendan Shanahan is the one who put his name on the announcement. While the Marlies are a separate entity owned by the same ownership group behind the Maple Leafs, that he felt the need to address the issue head-on instead of through a faceless statement speaks to the urgency the franchise seems to have felt to rectify the issue.
As always, make sure you check someone’s social media profiles before you hire them, especially if they’re dumb enough to leave their bad opinions out there.
