Grove Bennett, head of governing board, quits as financial past comes to light & More News Here

Sandi Logan, an ice hockey participant of six many years, lobbied the board to sack Bennett.

“I’ve got serious reservations as a member, as do the other 5000 members of Ice Hockey Australia, about the couple of hundred bucks I pay every year to the organisation,” Logan stated.

“Where’s it going? Who’s using it? Who has access to it?”

While a number of sources aware of board discussions instructed The Age and Herald a wage for Bennett’s place as CEO was mentioned, Ice Hockey Australia, in a web-based publish, denied cash was ever paid.

Bennett’s former Canadian enterprise associate, Steven Barclay, stated he nearly misplaced all the things after being caught within the self-described high-performance coach’s wake.

In 2014, Bennett and Barclay bought a Canadian incapacity help firm, Aroga Technologies.

In a spin-off enterprise, Bennett peddled “quantum-infused” hologram patches, which claimed to assist with a variety of points, from weight reduction to sleep.

As payments mounted and Aroga Technologies defaulted on its mortgage, the Toronto-Dominion financial institution filed a lawsuit in opposition to Bennett, accusing him of siphoning cash from the incapacity firm into his hologram enterprise.

The financial institution additionally accused Bennett of offering “false” and “misleading” details about his enterprise’ financial affairs and utilizing the mortgage to fund his and his spouse’s life-style.

“He basically started treating his company as his personal piggy bank,” Barclay instructed The Age, Herald and A Current Affair from his Vancouver residence.

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“I started to learn something was amiss when I couldn’t get even simple answers to accounting questions.”

With the financial institution pursuing, Bennett and his household packed their suitcases, wiped their social media accounts and purchased a one-way ticket to Australia.

“He just vanished one day,” Barclay stated. “Nobody knew where he had gone, nobody could contact him.”

According to Canadian chapter data, Bennett owed 62 collectors round $3.2 million, (A$3.56 million) which he blamed on “business failure” and “financial mismanagement”.

Bennett racked up a $100,000 (A$111,000) bank card invoice and the tax workplace was after him for greater than $1 million (A$1.11 million). That doesn’t embody the money owed owed by his enterprise.

Bennett now lives in Patterson Lakes, southeast of Melbourne, the place he additionally runs the Boomers Tennis Academy.

He and Ice Hockey Australia didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark.

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