Earlier this spring, a woman filed a statement detailing an alleged sexual assault that took place in June 2018 at an event hosted by Hockey Canada, the country’s national sports governing body. He said in the statement that he had been forced for hours to perform sexual acts against his will for eight men, including players from that year’s men’s under-20 championship team. In April, he asked a judge to award $ 3.55 million in damages. Hockey Canada was established. (The allegations were never tried in the courts).
Assuring everyone that the deal had not been paid for with taxpayers ’money was part of the reason Hockey Canada executives were in Ottawa this week to testify in a parliamentary committee. And they also wanted everyone to be calm about something else: that the hockey culture is changing for the better. “Hockey Canada is on a journey to change the culture of our sport and make it safer and more inclusive,” Tom Renney, general manager of Hockey Canada, told lawmakers.
Renney later explained that Hockey Canada had quickly contacted police about the allegations and hired an outside investigator to issue a report, both of which were arguably the right steps. But the investigations did not go far. The woman who had made the allegations refused to speak to investigators, Renney said, and did not want to identify the players involved.
Has anyone else tried to identify them? The members of the commission asked for it, repeatedly, in different ways. Each time, the answer was the same: not really. Hockey Canada “strongly encouraged all players to participate” in the third-party investigation. Some players did, maybe a dozen, but it is not known who. And the law firm leading the investigation has been unable to complete its work, offering Hockey Canada only an interim report. If the woman hadn’t filed her claim this spring, it looks like we didn’t know any of that.
“I don’t understand why Hockey Canada did not enforce a rule that every member of this team had to be part of the investigation,” MP Peter Julian said during the meeting. The answer might be that there was no rule to enforce. There aren’t any yet. “It was not acceptable to tell players that participation in their research was optional and that they have not yet changed the requirements to join a national team – four years later – to require each and every person to be “Incorporate … participate in any investigation,” Anthony Housefather MP and committee member told the Guardian.
On Wednesday, the government froze federal funding for Hockey Canada (it received $ 14 million last year), pending the release of advice the organization received in the interim report and the its registration in the office of the government’s Commissioner for Sports Integrity, an agency that could independently investigate allegations of abuse and issue sanctions.
A couple of times during his appearance on the committee, Hockey Canada executives tried to place the latter alleged assault in a broader social context. There are more than 650,000 registered hockey players in Canada, said Scott Smith, its chief operating officer. “Unfortunately, we are a microcosm of society. We are a microcosm of this country, “he said.” Hockey culture may be shaped by Canadians, but don’t pretend it doesn’t work the other way around. Because behind all these players are hundreds of thousands more: relatives. , coaches, officials, league administrators, track supervisors, fans, you get the idea.This is Canada.This sport also makes us who we are.
For his part, Housefather says he believes Hockey Canada is “in good faith when they say they want to change the culture.” But if you’re on a “journey,” as Renney said, we deserve to know where you are on that path. I asked Hockey Canada this week, but they didn’t answer me. So your guess is as good as mine, but it sure feels pretty circular. After all, it’s far from the first time something like this has happened.
In fact, it looks like we’re back where we were in September, before the last NHL season began, when former Chicago Blackhawks player Kyle Beach identified himself as the victim of an alleged abuse by the former team video coach Brad Aldrich. The Blackhawks did not initiate an investigation into the incident for a decade. Last fall, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman hinted at a culture change that occurred during that time, and suggested that now the incident would be treated differently, “because we wouldn’t tolerate it.” The NHL has begun its own investigation into Canada Hockey allegations, in case some of those former youth players are now in the league. So we’ll see.
As The Athletic said this week, summing up previous high-profile abuse allegations, this is “a hockey story, decades old.” Here we are again, reading each chapter. Players object or object to another person. Silence afterwards. A report is prepared. A cultural change is promised. Then the game goes on and they take on more trivial issues, debates about rules or wage limits, things that feel, at this point, as if they were important to the health of the game.
But in the meantime, the youth hockey record is stagnating and a sport, a social institution, is declining. Perhaps for parents, the economic costs of hockey are too high. Or maybe it’s the physical and mental tolls. Take me, for example. Here I wonder how my son will be able to play a sport he enjoys without being mistreated by some idiot or letting hockey turn him into one. Where Hockey Canada thinks it is on its journey, it seems we are still at a point where both seem possible.