Paul Bissonnette releases another bombshell report on Mike Babcock

It's been a whirlwind week for the Columbus Blue Jackets' front office.

Mid-last week there were reports that head coach Mike Babcock was under review from both the NHL and the NHLPA after popular TNT broadcaster and Barstool podcaster Paul Bissonnette shared some stories regarding Babcock and his treatment of the Blue Jackets' players at pre-season interviews. In particular, Bissonnette reported that Babcock was playing head games with his team's young players, asking them to share photos of their phone and broadcasting them on a television screen for all to see.

Honestly, it doesn't sound like a big deal to me and players like Boone Jenner and Johnny Gaudreau both came forward to say that the 'photo sharing' instances with Babcock were completely innocent. Still, Bissonette and his Spittin' Chiclets crew did not back down from their report, stating that several players had reached out to them personally in conflict with Babcock's, Jenner's and Gaudreau's comments.

Then, the hammer fell. Babcock resigned from his job as Blue Jackets head coach after an NHLPA investigation that NHL insider Elliotte Friedman says dug a little deeper into the matter. In Friedman's words, there was 'no coming back' for Babcock once the investigation was completed.

Today, on their first podcast episode since all of this went down Bissonnette and the Spittin' Chiclets crew reported that there's "even worse" news to come out regarding Babcock.

From Bissonnette:

“Last week, we said what we said in the podcast and obviously we were very animated about it. And we did so based on what I had heard at that point,” Bissonnette said. “Never did I call for Babcock to get fired on the last podcast. I didn’t give a flying f**k if he stuck around.”

“Babcock’s future didn’t lie in my hands. It lied in the hands of the younger players in which he did even worse to that didn’t come out. And that still has been under wraps in which probably because they want to protect these guys and just what they should be doing focusing on hockey,” Bissonnette added.

“If you’re thinking, ‘Oh, this is cancel culture?’ No. This is a guy who’s been known to do this, doing the exact same sh*t after going away for four years who just didn’t learn his lesson this guy has no [social awareness…],” Bissonnette added.

“He does not deserve to be around the game. He doesn’t deserve to be around these kids, and especially how to control their futures in the palm of his hands in which he seems to really flex that power dynamic has in the past and will continue to do it if you give them another job. We don’t want to see these younger players go through this bullsh*t anymore.”

- Paul Bissonnette

Just like happened after Babcock's time with the Leafs, I would expect some more info to trickle out in the aftermath of this fiasco.