Former Canucks coach Rachel Doerrie gives first public interview since being dismissed by the team

The Vancouver Canucks have been dealing with a lot both on and off the ice this season, but I bet the team's management staff didn't believe they'd be dealing with a PR mess resulting from the dismissal of an assistant video coach months after the fact.

Assistant coaches, especially those who don't do their work on an NHL bench, are dismissed all the time in the league and it rarely makes headlines... not so much in Vancouver though. I'm talking, of course, about former Canucks assistant video coach Rachel Doerrie. The 26 year old Doerrie was dismissed from her job earlier this season, less than a calendar year into her time with the team. Head coach Bruce Boudreau was effusive in his praise for Doerrie's work just days before her firing, leaving fans to wonder just what went wrong.

Flash forward a couple months and Doerrie filed a wrongful dismissal suit against the Canucks, alleging that she was discriminated against due to an underlying medical issue. Doerrie maintains that she was up front with the team at the time of her hiring that she suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and that it can trigger panic attacks and cardiac episodes. She maintains that Canucks President Jim Rutherford assured her that her condition wouldn't be used against her and that the team would use its resources to help her manage her condition. She now say that things didn't play out that way and that her superiors, most notably assistant GM Emilie Castonguay, questioned her ability to do her job given her condition.

All of this is to say that Doerrie feels she was wronged by the Canucks and now she's looking to hold the team accountable.

Today Doerrie held her first public interview since being dismissed, sharing the inside details of her situation on Donnie and Dhali the Team on Vancouver's Chek TV. And... I've got to say... I was a little skeptical about Doerrie's case ahead of hearing her words and now I'm even more skeptical. To me, and this is PURELY my opinion, she doesn't come off as the most honest and trustworthy individual. Frankly, she comes off as kind of self-entitled and smug. 

I encourage everyone to give the full 12 minute interview a listen though so they can draw their own conclusions.

Check it out:

To me, this is a case of someone who maybe wasn't the best fit for her job running into some conflict with her superiors. It happens in workplaces all over the world every single day... in Doerrie's case though she just happened to hold down a public job.

Again, watch the interview for yourself and draw your own conclusions though.