[NHL] Domi+Stronach=Scandal?

[Fred Derf Veteran]

It has now been confirmed that recently retired hockey enforcer/pugilist is dating Belinda Stronach, a federal Member of Parliament and former cabinet minister with the Liberal Party..

Rumour and background:

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTV...hub=TorontoHome

Confirmation:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...y/National/home

Scandal!:

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...4&t=TS_Home

[BroChaos Veteran]

interesting. never really was a fan of domi though, especially after what he did to....that devil....niedermeyer?

i heard that melrose thinks he belongs in the HOF though. maybe this chick can get some legislation passed for him :p

[Fred Derf Veteran]

Players have short memories. Remember the hit that Darcy Tucker put on Peca? Now, they're teammates...

[Fred Derf Veteran]

Domi's wife takes divorce public

In interview, Leanne Domi says the `facts are facts' about Tie and Belinda

Sep. 26, 2006. 01:00 AM

ROSIE DIMANNO

STAR COLUMNIST

All the world's a sucker for scandal, especially when there's sex involved.

Loving and un-loving: It's the stuff of vicarious, if cheap, thrills.

And in a celebrity-challenged country such as Canada ? where hockey is politics ? the gasp-snicker subject of the day must needs be The Battle of the Domis, with an uptown girl-pol thrown in for titillation.

Not exactly Jen and Brad and Angelina, but juicy enough for the likes of us.

In some dish'n'dirt quarters, the alleged romantic alliance of Tie Domi and Belinda Stronach has been tacitly framed as Beauty and the Beast: Except she's no flaming beauty and he's no Neanderthal beast.

The accused Other Woman, she is a compelling combination of blond ambition, moneyed privilege, political inconstancy and suspect judgment, with a very public trail of intimate relationships gone bad behind her.

And he's an immensely popular persona-about-town with business smarts at least commensurate to his hockey talents.

But the least-known protagonist in this alleged three-way tango of love and betrayal and anguish is The Wife, Leanne Domi.

A Mrs. of 13 years standing who has, already once before, forgiven her husband for what she says was a previous infidelity, on the promise that he would never again hurt her like this.

&qIf it wasn't for my husband's affair with Belinda, we wouldn't be getting a divorce," Leanne told the Star in an interview last night.

&qWe were happily married. If not for Belinda, I think we still would be happily married. But he's no longer my husband and he will never be my husband again."

Leanne Domi has been criticized in recent days ? and certainly from within the pro-Tie camp ? for going so publicly postal in the provocative details contained within the court documents filed in support of her divorce application.

"The facts are the facts. Should I have just said that my marriage ended because my husband had committed adultery? People are insinuating that I named names to get back at Belinda or something. But this is what happened and this is why my marriage ended. There is zero doubt in my mind that Tie is having an affair with Belinda."

In the court documents, Leanne Domi said she asked her husband to leave their home on July 22 because she no longer believed his "lies'' about a strictly business relationship with Stronach, nor the excuses he allegedly made for time spent away from the familyTie Domi lied to and cheated on me and our children. ... He is a bully and will do whatever he has to do and say whatever he needs to say to get what he wants for himself. And right now, what he wants is to ensure that our family gets as little as possible so he can maintain his jet-set lifestyle, dine with movie stars (like Brad Pitt), and play the role of Belinda Stronach's exciting new romantic `good tough guy.'#39;''

She maintains that, when confronted, Tie urged her not to hire a lawyer; that he would give her $1 million in cash and $1.5 for their palatial North Toronto"He told me that if I did hire a lawyer, I would `get nothing'#39; ... He has told me he has many powerful and influential friends (including Belinda Stronach) who are `on his side and who don't want to hear my stupid sob stories about him and Belinda'. And he has told me that I had better `leave Belinda out of this.'''

It would be sexist to portray Stronach as some kind of man-eater who's now got her French-manicured talons into Domi, small-town boy made spectacularly good. By this point in the evolution of the sexes, surely women are just as entitled to their appetites and assignations as men. But the optics are lousy when a family goes bust because of it, and even more so for an elected politician who depends on the fealty of voters, one who ? the irony is withering ? is chair of the Liberal women's caucus.

Stronach appears singularly lacking in sisterly sympathies whilst also something of a balls-crusher, at least on the evidence of discarded, sad-eyed Peter MacKay ? oh, we felt his pain! ? dumped simultaneous with the Member from Newmarket-Aurora crossing the floor from Conservatives to Liberals, on the eve of an election no less. Her allegiances, like her love, are fickle.

So now she's reportedly gone from heartbreaker to home-wrecker.

Advice to Tie: She'll leave you bleeding.

Stronach does seem to have been dating (or alleged dating) down in recent years, descending from the Olympic heights of an almost mythically revered multiple gold medallist husband (Spouse #2) to an American president notorious for his infidelity to a then-in-opposition caucus colleague to a now-retired Toronto Maple Leaf. From Johann Koss to Bill Clinton to MacKay to Domi. Of course, in the eyes of some, Domi as purported paramour would be considered scoring up. (And if MacKay really does have a jones on for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, his heart has mended to palBut the image of Domi as bag-boy, schlepping Stronach's purchases around Manhattan ? as has been claimed ? is wince-inducing. The man who once knocked the block off Bob Probert shouldn't be thus emasculated. And a woman who wants to be taken seriously as a player in the corridors of power, up on the Hill, should perhaps not reduce her "friend'' to such symbolically servile status. servile status.

What we've got here, at least according to the divorce papers, is a palpably long-suffering spouse driven to the breaking and break-up point by a serially unfaithful husband. In the documents, Leanne Domi alleges the cheating started when their daughter was only eight months old and that, during a subsequent 18-month separation, she discovered that Domi was having an affair with the B-level TV actress Tia Carrere (who once famously wore a Maple Leaf jersey as a dress at the NHL Awards).

This is all, it must be emphasized, but one side of the story ? none of the allegations have been tested yet in court ? and, as marriage failures go, one side is always a self-serving version of events, never the complete picture. Domi has not yet filed his counter-papers.

It can't be denied, however, that Mrs. Domi ? an attractive and accomplished woman in her own right, formerly a merchandising manager, and a marathoner if memory serves (she actually looks a bit like Belinda) ? has gone into extensive and arguably unnecessary detail about the alleged betrayals, when no-fault divorce laws in this country discourage just that very thing.

An enthralled public iLeanne Domi is seeking $15,246 a month in child supporta month in child support ? the couple has three kids ages 12, 11 and 7; she wants custody ? and $30,000 in spousal support, based upon Tie Domi's current income, as she presents it, of $1 million annually.

Tie Domi is not talking. Belinda Stronach couldn't be reached yesterday.

But sources close to the couple ? by which I mean the alleged couple, Tie and Belinda ? told the Star that the purported pair feel broadsided by the incendiary contents of Mrs. Domi's divorce application, with Tie particularly frantic about how such open hostility will affect their kids.

"Didn't she stop to think about what she was doing?'' said one source, about Leanne.

Further, whether genuinely involved romantically or not ? Tie Domi has repeatedly stated he and Belinda are merely good friends ? the couple has drawn even closer in the past few days because of Mrs. Domi's disclosures, sources say.

For those wondering, Domi is not cohabiting with Stronach. In her documents, Leanne Domi states friends have told her that Tie is living in a condominium on the Magna golf course "which I believe may well be owned or controlled or which was provided to/facilitated for him by Belinda Stronach, or which at the very least is extremely close to Belinda Stronach's residence.''

Convenient for a shoulder to cry on. Except tough guys don't cry, right?

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...4&t=TS_Home

Updated again - Now there is a settlement (but the details were not released):

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...4&t=TS_Home