TRIGGER WARNING: The following article contains details and references to sexual assault, which can be disturbing to victims.
Hockey Canada is in hot water. Hot, hot water.
Their sexual assault problem goes beyond anything that is even close to an isolated incident.
The first news of their sexual assault problems stem from a lawsuit first reported from TSN’s Rick Westhead where a woman accused eight CHL players of sexually assaulting her when she was intoxicated in a hotel room in 2018.
At that time, the now 24-year-old woman, identified in court records as “E.M.,” said she went to a bar in London, Ontario, when she was introduced to a player and his teammates. The players were listed as John Does in the lawsuit, which also named Hockey Canada and the CHL, seeking more than $3.5 million in damages.
The lawsuit says that the assaults took place on the early morning of June 19, 2018, during a two-day Hockey Canada event in London where the 2018 World Junior team was honored after beating Sweden in the World Junior Championship.
The players were in London as part of a Hockey Canada event honoring them for winning gold at the World Juniors, and they arrived at Jack’s Yard, a bar and restaurant in downtown London, following a Hockey Canada Foundation Gala.
E.M. entered the bar at 11 PM, where she met one of the hockey players, not listed as a defendant, who introduced her to John Doe 1 and his teammates.
The woman was separated from her friends as the players were bringing her more and more drinks, eventually leaving the bar and had sex with one of the players at a hotel. Afterwards, she said the player invited his teammates into the room without her knowledge or consent, as she was too intoxicated to do so.
She said she showed signs of intoxication, including “glassy eyes, slurred speech, stumbling and loss of balance” upon leaving the bar with John Doe 1 before going to the Delta London Armouries Hotel.
“Throughout the assaults, the plaintiff experienced an ongoing apprehension of imminent physical harm of a sexual nature,” the lawsuit said. “The actions of the John Doe defendants caused terror and fear in the plaintiff’s mind. The John Doe defendants had complete control over the plaintiff and had isolated her from others. The number of men and the fact that they had brought golf clubs to the room further intimidated the plaintiff. As a result, the plaintiff acquiesced to their repeated sexual acts and direction to engage in same, but this in no way constituted valid consent under law by the plaintiff.
“At times, the plaintiff was crying and attempted to leave the room but was directed, manipulated and intimidated into remaining, after which she was subjected to further sexual assaults.”
E.M. alleged that the players’ actions amounted to conspiracy, since the players were encouraging her to drink alcohol, separating herself from her friends, engaging in sexual acts with her, pressuring her to not leave when she was trying to do so, directing her to say that she was sober while being video recorded, and led her to have a shower after the sexual assaults finished.
She added the John Doe defendants were pressuring her to not report the players to the police and to not cooperate with a criminal investigation after it was initiated.
Because of these assaults, she has mental anguish, humiliation, degradation, shame, and low self-esteem. She added in her lawsuit that the incident harmed her ability to complete her education, to earn an income, and to establish relationships of intimacy, and suffers from PTSD, nightmares, depression, and suicidal thoughts as a result.
“The plaintiff has been required to undergo medical treatment and psychological counseling and will continue to require same indefinitely throughout her lifetime,” the claim said.
This shows that Hockey Canada “ignored or failed to reasonably address institutionalized and systemic abuse” and “had knowledge that over the last number of years, its players were subjected to sexual assault and also encouraged to sexually assault others.”
Hockey Canada claims they learned of the allegations in 2018 and informed the authorities, but the woman would not cooperate with an investigation or name any of the players. In that same story, Westhead also reported that Hockey Canada reached a settlement with E.M., which covered all the co-defendants, including the individual John Does.
The lawsuit gained public attention in the middle of growing coverage in the NHL, in cases in volving both individual players and organizations, including Jake Virtanen and Logan Mailloux in the former case and the Chicago Blackhawks’ failure of the entire handling of the Kyle Beach scandal in the latter case.
And this expands to the rest of the sport, because the World Juniors are the spotlight for all of the NHL’s incoming young talent. The Canadian team is to the NHL what Alabama is to the NFL, and almost every potential John Doe currently plays in an NHL team. There are already players who have personally or through their agents denied any involvement in the sexual assaults, including Cale Makar, Robert Thomas and Victor Mete.
The London Police previously had an investigation that lasted from June 2018 to February 2019, but have reopened the investigation into the accusations.
Members of Parliament were raising serious concerns on the allegations during the committee, citing the multimillion-dollar contracts in the NHL, and the chance they could possibly coach Canadian hockey players of the future one day.
“It’s not unreasonable now to imagine that many of the eight players subject to these gang rape allegations enjoy lucrative professional careers,” said Minister of Sport Pascale St-Onge to the committee.
Global News, a news company based in Canada, reached out to the agents of all the players on the 2018 Hockey Canada roster asking if each player had participated in the external probe conducted for Hockey Canada by Henein Hutchison, and if they were involved in the sexual assault. The news company also received a statement from Toronto criminal defense lawyer Scott Fenton:
We act for one of the players referenced in your email inquiry and have consulted with counsel for the other players you reference. All of Global News’ questions will be asked and answered during the pending NHL investigation. That said, none of the players you reference engaged in any wrongdoing, all of the players cooperated fully with the independent London Police Service investigation in 2018, and all players were then cleared of any wrongdoing.
Naming any of these players now, or attempting to associate any of them in any way with alleged criminal wrongdoing, or alleging that they were not cooperative with the London Police or willing to cooperate with Hockey Canada, will constitute materially false statements constituting defamation causing serious financial and reputational harm.
The question on if this is an institutional and/or cultural issue can dive deeper into the reveal of an alleged assault by Hockey Canada players in 2003, per another report from Westhead. That 2003 team, who finished second at the World Juniors, also had players with future pros and had several players who went on to play long NHL careers.
TSN has also covered the alleged existence of a video between six and seven minutes in length showing players from the 2003 World Juniors sexually assaulting a non-responsive woman, which was confirmed independently by the owner of the borrowed camera used to make the video. Two people said they watched it at an apartment on VHS in 2003.
The police from Halifax, who co-hosted the 2003 World Juniors, said they are looking into the allegations.
Hockey Canada was “unable to learn anything” about the 2003 sexual assault before being contacted by TSN.
Conservative MP John Nater, a member of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, told TSN that he planned to ask Hockey Canada on July 27 to respond to allegations that more than a half-dozen players on the 2003 World Junior team were recorded during the tournament having sex with the woman, who was both non-responsive and naked.
Nater, who represents the southwestern Ontario riding of Perth-Wellington, said he spoke with a source who said that he viewed a video of the incident in spring 2003, several months after the World Juniors ended.
“We’re talking about Canada’s elite national team and to hear allegations like this is just disgusting,” said Nater.
The source who contacted Nater says the video began with one of Team Canada’s player standing outside of a room, answering questions as if he was doing a pregame interview with the person holding the camera, who is not identified.
The player told the camera operator that the viewers were going to see “a f**cking lamb roast,” per the three sources. After the hallway interview, the camera was carried to a room with a pool table, per the source.
Two of the three sources said the watched the video on a VHS tape in an apartment in the spring of 2003, with the third saying that one of the players on the team borrowed their video camera during the tournament. The recording was on the camera when it returned to them.
The person said they did not inform police on the recording and deleted the video from their camera after being pressured to do so by players. The source also said they believe a copy of the video was made when the camera was not in their possession.
None of the three sources reported the video to either the police or Hockey Canada.
“I didn’t want to get in trouble,” said the owner of the video camara in a phone interview. “I knew this could get them in trouble.”
In the wake of all these news, Hockey Canada also told federal hearings that they paid $8.9 million since 1989 to settle 21 cases of alleged sexual assault, with most of that money coming from a special fund built from registration fees that were not disclosed to parents and players.
The figures did not include the settlement that Hockey Canada reached in May from the 2018 sexual assault allegations.
Senior executives said that Hockey Canada used a reserve called the National Equity Fund to pay out nine settlements at the time, worth a combined $7.6 million, without putting those claims through the organization’s insurance policies and further scrutiny.
Of the $7.6 million the special fund paid out since 1989, $6.8 million of settlements were related to the abuse that was perpetrated from disgraced ex-coach Graham James, as said by Hockey Canada chief financial officer Brian Cairo.
Cairo added that Hockey Canada settled 12 additional claims through its insurance coverage for a $1.3 million total. Those insurance settlements were reached since 1996, when Hockey Canada’s existing insurance policy for sexual misconduct began.
This was the first public disclosure of how much the organization used this fund to settle the allegations. However, an investigation from The Globe and Mail found out that Hockey Canada did not offer transparency about the National Equity Fund, fed by the registration fees that were said to be for insurance premiums, and there was no disclosure on how some of that money was used.
The organization also did not explain why they did not use the insurance coverage it carries to settle the May lawsuit, or why they deemed the matter uninsurable. Instead, Hockey Canada was moving to settle the lawsuit in a matter of weeks, despite not knowing which players were allegedly involved.
“We haven’t used money to protect our image, we’ve used money to respond and support victims,” said Hockey Canada CEO Scott Smith. “We made the decision to settle in the best interests of the young woman. We didn’t want to litigate this or we didn’t want to go through the procedure that you make reference to and challenge her by putting her through the circumstance.”
Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, a former corporate lawyer, called this settlement unusual, saying he cannot imagine another organization agreeing to pay out a claim in such a manner. Conservative MP Kevin Waugh also questioned the lack of disclosure on the National Equity Fund, in which the Canadian government acknowledged they did not know was used to settle sexual assault cases.
“The National Equity Fund caught everyone off guard,” said Waugh in the hearing.
“Did you know about the National Equity Fund and what they were doing with it?” Waugh asked Barry Lorenzetti, the president of BFL Canada, Hockey Canada’s insurance broker.
“I did not know personally about the equity fund, no sir,” answered Lorenzetti.
Lorenzetti added that it was not uncommon for organizations to operate contingency funds, and thought it was management risk.
“If Hockey Canada had not kept the fund and eventually had an uninsurable loss of some significance ... the only way they could probably recover is to go and actually increase registration fees for these kids. So this is prudent,” said Lorenzetti.
However, Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner questions on whether having such a fund would allow alleged perpetrators to escape accountability for their actions, helping to perpetuate problems.
As said before, Hockey Canada did not disclose to parents and players on if some of their money, which they told was for insurance, was instead going to a reserve for sexual assault settlements.
Players of all ages entering Hockey Canada’s programs, from beginner Timbits Hockey to senior leagues, pay a $23.80 fee to Hockey Canada for insurance, and some of the money was being channeled to a National Equity Fund.
Little has been known about the fund and how it operates, but the investigation from The Globe and Mail revealed that the National Equity Fund exceeded $15 million in recent years, drawing revenue from investments and interest.
During federal hearings in Ottawa this June, Smith was asked whether government funding was used to pay the settlement in May, to which Smith responded that no public money was used, saying that Hockey Canada liquidated some of the investments. He did not mention the National Equity Fund or its relationship to player registration fees purported to be for insurance coverage.
Smith also did not say how much the claim concerning the alleged 2018 sexual assault was settled for, but said that Hockey Canada’s board approved paying the full amount that was discussed in the settlement negotiations.
“The board approved the maximum amount of the settlement, and the settlement offer was made and accepted,” said Smith.
Hockey Canada also used $287,000 from the National Equity Fund to pay the law firm Henein Hutchison LLP, led by Danielle Robitaille, to look into the 2018 allegations, though the investigation could not confirm on what transpired, in part because not all of the players on the team agreed to be interviewed.
MPs Nater and Peter Julian both called for changes in Hockey Canada’s leadership, including the resignation of Smith. However, Smith said that he would not voluntarily resign unless told so by the board of directors.
“I strongly believe there needs to be new leadership within Hockey Canada. Will you step down?” urged Nater.
Nater referenced a statement from former NHL player and sexual abuse victim Sheldon Kennedy calling on Smith to resign:
The same people with a new plan expecting different results is the definition of insanity. I call for the resignation of Hockey Canada CEO Scott Smith, his leadership team and the board of directors to resign and step down from their positions immediately. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH ALREADY.
Smith is among five current and former Hockey Canada officials to appear before parliament in the hearings, along with former CEO Tom Renney (he retired from his post effective July 1st), former Vice President of insurance and risk management Glen McCurdie, chief financial officer Brian Cairo, and Hockey Canada Foundation chair Dave Andrews.
MP Kevin Waugh added to the idea of calling out the previous presidents of Hockey Canada and their power to direct the organization.
“Bob Nicholson, Tom Renney, and you are too powerful ... Hockey Canada needs to change at the board level ... this is where it has to start,” Waugh told Smith.
MPs were repeatedly questioning Smith about the processes leading to the settlements, but he claimed that Hockey Canada kept no meeting minutes from the in-camera sessions that were held related to the 2018 settlement or the other settlement discussions.
Smith’s demeanor during the initial hearings came under fire during the hearing.
“It seems you had to be criticized severely ... it seems you had to have a knife put to your throat to a change,” said Bloc Quebecois MP Andréanne Larouche.
Larouche also claimed that Smith and Hockey Canada “used money to protect your image.”
Smith denied using money to protect his, or Hockey Canada’s image, though the image and reputation of hockey in Canada was a concern for Canadian Hockey League president Dan McKenzie, who said he wanted “to make sure not to damage the reputation of millions of players, coaches...” in Canada.
MP Karen Vecchio emphasized on the belief that more could have been done relating to the 2018 assault.
“We know there are 8 perpetrators on a hockey team ... we weren’t doing anything ... it was swept under the rug,” said Vecchio.
All these questionings and testimony have shown the failure of Hockey Canada and the CHL in the prevention of issues within the sport and their future plans to solve future shortcomings on relation to assault, abuse, diversity, and inclusion.
Smith even added, “I’m not sure we will ever hit the finish line on that,” when on the topic of making hockey inclusive.
This is a guy who refuses to acknowledge that the issues within Hockey Canada as being a systemic issue all around.
And Sheldon Kennedy knows that Hockey Canada’s responses to the assault are “archaic.” There even is a lack of mandatory training in issues of abuse and discrimination despite the calls for that.
“I think the most powerful thing that they can do is throw their hands up and say, ‘We need help. Can somebody help us? We are all ears,’” said Kennedy. “I think strong leadership is about asking for help and bringing in the right people to help them, the right organizations to help them.”
Kennedy believed that Hockey Canada was trying to solve the problem internally instead of seeking external help, and adds that it “might be their downfall.”
Kennedy added that he saw a societal shift in matters on addressing issues surrounding abuse, assault, bullying, and discrimination, but did not see that same progress with Hockey Canada.
“There’s a whole different understanding of these issues today than there ever has been, and expectation,” said Kennedy. “There’s been a societal shift, and I think that the game of hockey has not kept up with that societal shift.”
He even added that Hockey Canada responded to present-day allegations “like they would have 20 years ago.”
“I think the backlash is because we have been growing as a country, we’ve been growing as a society, we expect better and we have better knowledge,” he said. “And our young people aren’t scared to talk about these issues. We’re not petrified of it, but the people in charge are.”
It even got to where former NHL player Daniel Carcillo, who filed a statement of claim with the Ontario Superior Court in 2020, has expressed his anger on the testimony of Hockey Canada’s handling of the sexual assault allegations.
He issued a statement on Twitter on July 27th, where he revealed to be one of the lead plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit filed against the CHL:
I am one of the lead plaintiffs in a class action against the Canadian Hockey League. I have shared my stories of abuse as a child playing in this league, as have dozens of others. I lead this class action on behalf of scores of children and young people who were abused while playing in the CHL, just like my teammates and I were.
I heard the testimony of Dan McKenzie, David Branch, Gilles Courteau and Ron Robinson, the leaders of junior hockey in Canada, gave before a House of Commons Committee this afternoon. These individuals used their appearances before that committee as an opportunity to litigate my class action in public, in circumstances where I lacked any opportunity to respond.
Their testimony [on July 27th] denied the existence of systemic and ongoing problems in junior hockey. I disagree. I believe that there is a culture of hazing and abuse in the CHL. I believe that there is, and has long been, system-wide knowledge of this culture. Systemic failures continue to occur in protecting the children and young people who play in the CHL. I believe the evidence will show this. I look forward to proving as much in Court, beginning with the certification hearing in my class action in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice this November.
The assaults that happened in Hockey Canada indicates that there is a longstanding problem with Canadian junior hockey, along with the revelation from Scott Smith that the organization received additional complaints of sexual misconduct, and has continued to maintain a separate fund to cover uninsured liabilities.
One can say that Hockey Canada operates not to a best practice on professional standard when coming to transparency and accountability.
CFO Brian Cairo saying that $7.6 million was paid out to the National Equity Fund to cover nine settlements, where the majority of that being paid to the victims of disgraced coach convicted sex offender Graham James was a deflection from the fact that Cairo and Smith failed to mention that the $7.6 million does not include the board-approved amount to settle the case involving the junior players.
That was asked by a journalist to get that fact out, which can explain why Smith, who was with Hockey Canada’s leadership ranks since 1997, was having a hard time acknowledging the events plaguing them.
Rape is still a vastly underreported crime, and Hockey Canada has been giving two sexual assault payouts per year.
MPs still had their opportunity to go after Sport Canada on their inert role in the matter, and with the federal sports authority informed of the allegations at the time of the assault, MP Andréanne Larouche twice referred to the predictable talk around the sexual assault.
It all seemed as if rape was just something that is normal in society, she said—as if it was not a big deal at all.
Sport Canada spent four years not following up on what alleged to have happened between the unnamed players of Hockey Canada’s gold medal-winning team and the unnamed plaintiff (E.M.) after the gala celebration in London, and the plaintiff said that she will participate in and cooperate with the reopened investigations.
She said in a statement to Henein Hutchison LLP to both investigate the allegations and make recommendations to address the toxic hockey culture.
Hockey Canada settled the 2018 case as fast as they did because it was in the best interest of E.M. Fittingly, the board decided to settle the case on their own instead of passing the case over to American International Group (AIG), the insurance company providing the league with sexual misconduct coverage.
Both actions could easily be seen as Hockey Canada trying to silence the whole conundrum.
Nothing that they are doing is propagating the confidence of the hockey players’ parents, and, to an extent, hockey fans.
It is Hockey Canada’s responsibility for all these issues, because for anyone who takes on the ice to play in an organized league, they are the ones who are at the top of the ranks, overseeing the programs that keep the players playing. It’s what makes this an issue that touches more people than if the accusations were directed only at the NHL teams.
It’s the millions of dollars in player registration fees that Hockey Canada collects to help provide the fund that the organization can draw to settle the sexual assault allegations.
Any player who gave money to Hockey Canada now knows their own role in the silencing of victims and preserving a toxic culture.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even voiced his frustration on these scandals, calling for a “real reckoning” within Hockey Canada. He added that without the trust of parents, youth hockey cannot operate properly.
“A few years ago I had my son in hockey, and when I think about the culture that is apparently permeating the highest orders of that organization, I can understand why so many parents, so many Canadians who take such pride in our national winter sport, are absolutely disgusted,” said Trudeau.
A day after Trudeau made his statement, his Minister of Sport, Pascale St-Onge, announced a federal funding freeze for Hockey Canada.
Hockey Canada knows that they are facing a PR problem, so they released an “action plan” to combat their issues with the “toxic behavior” that has constantly been afflicting the organization. Unsurprisingly, there are vague commitments to areas such as improved training and “character screening” for their top teams. What’s more intriguing is the revamped independent and confidential complaint system, where their results will be published in an annual report.
Their plan might be enough to get them through the next round of hearings, but the road ahead is unfathomably immense, both on their goals to make everyone involved in hockey more alert and knowledgeable on sexual misconduct, and even in the less straightforward path to repairing the damage that was already done.
But what Sheldon Kennedy is saying is the truth: Hockey Canada needs to blow it up. Scott Smith, along with the rest of his leadership team, have to resign from their positions.
The issues that Hockey Canada have made a huge cloud of suspicion on every player, whether guilty or innocent, whether they have been involved in it or not, and it follows them to their future in the NHL as well as back to where they started, where the cases might discourage the next generation of players and fans from getting involved at all.
Hockey Canada has screwed these allegations up so badly, and the calls for the leadership to resign are stronger than the willingness to listen to plans to fix what is broken, understandably so. But it’s likely that Hockey Canada will remain as the gatekeepers of the sport.
Without any meaningful change, it means there is going to be another block in the road for anyone hoping to keep loving the game.
Because in the end, even though people love hockey, it seems hockey does not love them back.
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