On January ninth 2012, while Darian Scherbluk was training hard in Ukraine and making his final preparations for the draft when he had been given a harsh suspension which will force him to miss half of his rookie season due to a serious rule infraction. The rule that was broken by Darian was the use of multi accounts. Darian’s small trip to Ukraine was cut really short as two days into the trip was called up by the vice comminshiner of hockey operations in the SHL Brendan Shanahan to have a hearing for his accused offence. After a long talk with Brendan Shanahan and a review of the situation the commissioner of the NWJHL had decided to give rookie draftee Darian Scherbluk a suspension which would see him sitting out forty percent of his team’s games for this season. When Darian’s plane landed down in Canada he did not answer any question from the media and did not put out any statement to the media. All he said was he will address the media in a few days once everything is sorted out and after everything unfolds. Finally after exactly a week after Daraian had been suspended by the NWJHL commissioner he has called a press conference. We will now be taking you straight to the press conference so let’s listen in.

Darian: Well first of all I want to thank all of you for coming. It has
been a crazy week for m, meeting with all the head executives in the NWJHL and having to answer the same question over and over again to what happened with the suspension and illegal act. I did not want to address the media till tings were settled down so thank you for your patience. I am now open to questions.

Darian what is your thought on the heavy suspension that was handed out to you earlier this week?

“Well honestly I think the suspension is some what harsh for a first time rookie offender. I did openly admit that I had been managing multi accounts and that I was not aware it was a serious and punishable offence. I was really upset at first when I heard the length of my suspension and honestly thought that I did not deserve to be held out of games for that long. I am not saying I do not deserve a punishment as I agree that any member of the SHL should be held accountable for their action but honestly told the board that it was done without awareness of the rule. It was truly unfortunate that this had to happen as I was really looking forward to the draft and getting into some season games by the end of the month but it looks like I will be out, up in the press box for a while. Well after talking with one of the commissioners’ of the NWJHL and having a long discussion with him have decided to accept my consequences for my action and accept the punishment that was given to me. I am sorry we had to go down this road and hopefully I will never have to go through this again. I just want to let the league know that I do not intend to be a trouble maker and hopefully we can all put this situation behind us and move on with the upcoming draft and season.”

Darian was then asked by another reporter from TSN about what was his side to the story of the suspension and here is what he had to say:

“Well first thing I want to make clear is that I did not intentionally mean to break this rule and did not mean in any way to cheat this game. I have really enjoyed this whole league so far having many media appearances and meeting some great people and potentially future teammates .I have came to learn that I had broke a really serious rule by accident. I was new to this whole process and honestly was not too familiar with the rules and illegal acts. As a rookie coming onto the scene for just about a week I was still just getting the hang of things. Secondly I did admit to having managed multi accounts to a NWJHL general manager (who will not be named) at first without honestly even knowing anything was wrong. After I found out it was a very serious illegal infraction I was told that a member of the board of discipline would probably be messaging me with in the next short period of time. What I did immediately after was then message this person about what had happened with this situation before he had been informed. I do not want to get into a lot of details of what happened leading up to the managing of multi accounts but all I will just say that it was a recruitment drive that turned into an extremely big disaster. I know that probably a lot of members have not heard the full story of what happened and just want to give you the main part of the story after hearing about the suspension. I do not want to start any arguments over this and want to just put this incident behind us. “

What are your plans moving forward in the NWJHL and eventually the SHL?

Well I know that this incident probably has probably has general
managers of the NWJHL questioning if they should even draft me. What I have to say to that is I will continue to be active throughout my forty percent season game suspension and will still be able to participate in training camp, take part in team practice and stay in shape and will continue to improve my on ice abilities. The last thing I want to address is that I will not be a trouble maker on any team I am drafted to this was seriously a big misunderstanding on my part and will certainly never happen again.

I want to end off this press conference by saying that what happens in the past can’t be changed and all I is look forward to the future and work on proving myself that I am not a trouble maker and that I can become an elite player in this league!

I would now ask that any further questions or comments from anyone please not be posted and if anyone has anything to say please send me a private message. If possible I would like this topic to be locked. Thank you and I hope we can put this situation behind us and move forward. Sorry for any problems that I have caused to the league.