Grove Bennett, head of governing board, quits as financial past comes to light

Sandi Logan, an ice-hockey player of six decades, 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 said.

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

While multiple sources familiar with board discussions told The Age and Herald a salary for Bennett’s position as CEO was discussed, Ice Hockey Australia, in an online post, denied money was ever paid.

Bennett’s former Canadian business partner, Steven Barclay, said he almost lost everything after being caught in the self-described high-performance coach’s wake.

In 2014, Bennett and Barclay purchased a Canadian disability aid company, Aroga Technologies.

In a spin-off venture, Bennett peddled “quantum-infused” hologram patches, which claimed to help with a range of issues, from weight loss to sleep.

As bills mounted and Aroga Technologies defaulted on its loan, the Toronto-Dominion bank filed a lawsuit against Bennett, accusing him of siphoning money from the disability company into his hologram business.

The bank also accused Bennett of providing “false” and “misleading” information about his business’ financial affairs and using the loan to fund his and his wife’s lifestyle.

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

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

With the bank pursuing, Bennett and his family packed their suitcases, wiped their social media accounts and bought a one-way ticket to Australia.

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

According to Canadian bankruptcy records, Bennett owed 62…