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Shortly after sunrise on a sunny June morning, the biggest names in Canadian hockey, including members of that year’s gold medal-winning world junior team, gathered at the London Hunt Club to play golf.
The players wore matching red polo shirts with black collars and hit balls emblazoned with the Hockey Canada logo during an early morning round at a private country club in southwestern Ontario’s largest city.
Hockey Canada officials were informed hours earlier during the game that a young woman had alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by several members of the world junior team.
Later that day, around 6 p.m., long after the golf tournament had ended and the players had left town, Hockey Canada contacted London police.
That was six years ago.
Five members of Canada’s 2018 world junior team were told to surrender to police this week on charges of sexual assault, the Globe and Mail reported. In the gap between the assault charge and the impending accusation, almost no one in a position of authority or knowledge did the right thing.
On that day in June 2018, it took Hockey Canada several hours to consult with police due to obfuscation, backroom deals and hurdles aimed at avoiding transparency and shielding the organization and the defendants from scrutiny. It was the first delay in the year.
Hockey Canada has chosen to hide under a cloak of secrecy rather than operate openly.
It’s natural to wonder how much of an open secret the allegations against the world junior player were in hockey’s tight-knit fraternity. Which player knew? Which agent? Which team’s executive are you on?
What was supposed to be revealed but wasn’t, and why?
London police quietly closed the investigation in February 2019 after the lead detective decided there was not enough evidence to bring charges.
The findings follow a 2017 Globe and Mail investigation by journalist Robin Doolittle that found one in five sexual assault complaints in Canada were dismissed as unfounded. is consistent with In London in particular, 30 percent of such claims were deemed “unfounded” by city police.
The allegations that arose after the Hockey Canada Foundation Gala in June 2018 remained hidden, buried in a long history of sexual assault allegations within the junior hockey community, ignored for decades, and ignored for decades. They have been ignored and attacked.
The case suggests that another crisis for hockey’s gatekeepers could have been avoided had the plaintiffs not filed suit against Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League, and eight players in April 2022. Taro.
Hockey Canada settled the lawsuit out of court on behalf of all parties in an attempt to keep the allegations confidential.
And they would have remained — at least beyond the fraternity — if TSN reporter Rick Westhead hadn’t learned about the lawsuit and settlement a month later. His story started a series of investigations into what really happened that night in London.
Almost two years later, Hockey Canada’s culture of silence and secrecy has been brought under public scrutiny.
The Globe and Mail’s Grant Robertson revealed that the organization had a multimillion-dollar slush fund to settle sexual assault cases and concealed such cases. . Part of that funding came from registration fees paid by parents of children playing minor hockey across the country.
Amid public outrage, Hockey Canada executives were called to several parliamentary hearings in Ottawa, where they were grilled by MPs over the handling of allegations, settlements and the organization’s lack of transparency.
Those hearings revealed that Sport Canada, which oversees all Canadian sports governing bodies, was made aware of the sexual assault allegations in June 2018 but did nothing.
No surveys, no reviews, no questions.
there is nothing.
Following the hearing, the federal government froze funding to Hockey Canada and several prominent sponsors ended their affiliations. Hockey Canada CEO Scott Smith has resigned after initially resisting calls from members of parliament for him to resign. Hockey Canada’s entire board of directors also resigned.
London police reopened the investigation in July 2022 amid increased scrutiny of how Hockey Canada handled sexual assault allegations.
As media attention gathered, details of what happened that night in London became public. It wasn’t difficult for reporters to find first-hand accounts of members of the world junior team plying young women with alcohol at bars and attempting to take them away. Return to Delta Armories Hotel. It was easy to find photos and videos of the night. Through images, videos, and sources that interacted with players that night, they were able to piece together a timeline of who was where and when. Lawyers representing some of the players presented the media with two videos taken from a room at the Delta Armories Hotel, in which the alleged victims are shown illustrating what happened. He is reportedly seen saying he agreed. A text message was also revealed in which the player asked the woman if she had gone to the police.
As public speculation ran rampant and our insatiable appetite for details went unsatisfied, the names of members of that world junior team occasionally trended on Twitter. An anonymous plaintiff who sued for privacy was similarly tried in public, with strangers questioning her motives and the veracity of her claims.
Months after public attention reopened the police investigation, investigators believed they had grounds to file charges in the case that was initially dismissed.
In December 2022, London police filed a court application for further investigative powers, stating they had reasonable grounds to believe five hockey players had committed sexual assault. The application contained details of that night in London obtained through interviews with the complainant and the players who were in the hotel room at the time. The 94-page document, first obtained by the Globe and Mail, also reveals that members of Hockey Canada notified players that police had been contacted after the alleged incident. The player then sought out the woman on Instagram, asked her if she had called the police, and pressured her to drop the charges.
Members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior Team have been facing charges for a year, most of whom are now playing in the NHL. All team members have been banned from representing Canada at international hockey events pending the outcome of an internal investigation by Hockey Canada. Since then, the story has disappeared from the headlines, only to occasionally return with small updates with little progress.
The slow pace of reopening cases is understandable. This is an active criminal investigation with potentially serious consequences, and justice is at stake. Our desire to know more information is not taken into account in the process of law.
But it’s natural to be skeptical about what will be revealed and what will remain hidden. So is the question of who will be protected.
Is justice your top priority?
That’s a fair question. From the beginning, the horrific allegations were treated as a nuisance, ignored, and then rewarded. From the moment the allegations surfaced, there was an urge to reduce the damage to the hockey world rather than seek the truth about what happened.
When Hockey Canada first hired a law firm to investigate the allegations, players were not forced to participate and some declined to be interviewed. The law firm was unable to identify the suspect and the investigation was closed.
When the investigation was reopened in July 2022 amid public outcry, Hockey Canada required all players to participate in or be banned from any future Canadian programs or international competitions.
Why wasn’t this an original requirement?
The law firm’s findings were submitted to a third-party committee in November 2022. It took a full year for the committee to recommend possible sanctions against players it deemed to have violated Hockey Canada’s code of conduct.
These findings remain hidden due to the opaque appeals process. When will Hockey Canada release its findings?
The NHL has also launched its own investigation into what happened and whether the players will face disciplinary action, and said it will make its findings public. Commissioner Gary Bettman said in October 2022 that the investigation was “closer to the end than the beginning.” Through the NHL’s investigation, the players involved were able to continue to receive their paychecks while continuing to play in the world’s best league.
Details of that investigation have not been disclosed. If an investigation revealed wrongdoing, how long did the league hold on to that information before taking action?
Five players from the junior team are now reportedly heading to London, and police have scheduled a press conference on February 5 to discuss details of the high-profile case. A lengthy legal process awaits.
Neither Hockey Canada, the NHL nor the NHL Players Association have commented on the news of the pending charges.
We are just at the beginning. It’s been six years since that sunny June morning, and he’s waiting for answers to questions that too many of us hoped would never get to this point.
(Photo by Andy Devlin/Getty Images)
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