Five members from Canada’s 2018 world junior team (Hart, McLeod, Dube, Foote and Formenton) told to surrender to police, facing sexual assault charges

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Not sure if it was brought up but the witnesses have to be the other guys in the room of the night of the incident right?

 

[joestevens29]

The most embarrassing is the Devils, mostly because they signed Cal Foote this offseason when this was already percolating. Signing a guy involved in this is a bad look, but it’s an especially bad look when he’s a useless AHL plug. All downside, zero upside.

Tough to say. Should everyone from that team just have been blackballed? There have been quite a few players names thrown out over the past year and it seems some of those names for the time being were wrong.

Already reports that players were told to lie to their teams, so we really have no idea who knew what.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

The most embarrassing is the Devils, mostly because they signed Cal Foote this offseason when this was already percolating. Signing a guy involved in this is a bad look, but it’s an especially bad look when he’s a useless AHL plug. All downside, zero upside.

I mean if his agent said he wasn't apart of it and then that happens, he's basically just ruined his entire agent career. The Devils should've vetted the McLeod situation more

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Also I was also wondering how this went from 8 players to 5. Even with the group chat, you would think the other names would be mentioned in some way. London Police doing a Mickey Mouse job the first time and then being pressured to look into it again after Hockey Canada got found out for being trash is mostly London Police trying to save face and actually doing their job vs “Just boys being boys, they already handled it with the pay out.”

London police might have those details and might say something on the 5th, but I would guess the Crown believes it has enough evidence against the 5 to move forward with a much-better-than-not chance to convict. The other 3, ... there's evidence they were aware but didn't participate / not enough evidence to prove they participated. Stop me if you've heard this: none of us have the evidence to know what happened.

So many want to toe the line of “innocent until proven guilty” but from what has been reported - the players don’t argue what they did, they argue the consent portion which is already being blown up by the witness facts that we know due to some reporters getting that info out there already from the initial news blowing up what had happened.

That's why there's legal courts, which have trials that allow both sides to present evidence and call witnesses and make arguments, instead of having these things tried in the Court of Public Opinion.

It’s funny for the hockey world to see these sicko’s and how hockey has a reckoning due for sexual assault and other incidents and yet they allow so many players with a disgusting past to still remain in the NHL, hell even let the Habs draft one.

Just because someone has a "disgusting past" doesn't keep them out of the NHL. [Well, maybe unless you're Mitchell Miller.] Some of them are there because they're really good at teh hockey [where someone who's less good at teh hockey who did a lesser bad thing gets ostracized for it], some of them have paid their price in the past. Every situation should be judged on its own circumstances.

Source?

Things like this can't be sourced, but I'll take it a step back and say "it's unlikely teams will be able to void a contract over this." Could they choose to void them today? Absolutely they could, they could point to Paragraph 2, section e of the Standard Player Contract - the part that says the player agrees "... to conduct himself on and off the rink according to the highest standards of honesty, morality, fair play and sportsmanship, and to refrain from conduct detrimental to the best interest of the Club, the League or professional hockey generally" and say the players' alleged actions re: this incident give rise to a material violation of 2(e).

Would the NHLPA grieve it? In a heartbeat. Would the NHLPA win it? I can make arguments for and against, but my gut says the NHLPA would win it right now since the evidence isn't nearly as clear-cut as what we saw with Arizona and Galchenyuk in July, but it would most likely sit in limbo and the players would get played as everything played out - which, for everyone involved, would run the rest of their contracts out.

 

[jcs0218]

While I don't disagree with your sentiment. But if the thought of this stuff upsets you so much (and rightfully so) and you think stopping support is the way to go. You better not support any sports team of any league, any politician of any party, any large corporations etc. Guaranteed they ALL have stuff like this or way way worse hiding, this just happened to come out. Rich people of privilege (regardless of colour) like to think rules don't apply to them and they can do whatever they want and buy themselves out of consequence.

As bad as hockey culture is, I have a feeling that other sports are even worse when it comes to criminal behaviours.

Football and basketball have players who belong to gangs and organized crime, and some have even been involved with murders.

 

[Habby4Life]

As bad as hockey culture is, I have a feeling that other sports are even worse when it comes to criminal behaviours.

Football and basketball have players who belong to gangs and organized crime, and some have even been involved with murders.

Hockey culture is Fd up, it does matter what sport is worse. Hockey needs to clean this shit up. People need to teach and raise their boys better.

 

[JoVel]

These kids didn't have parents to tell them the difference between right and wrong? It's not Hockey Canada's job to teach that.

I don't think you should underestimate how much effect something like a hockey coach can have on a young person's growth and values.

 

[Strangle]

In my experience, there's a huge difference between discussing an illicit plan in an off-hand hypothetical way vs. an intentional + methodical way. Anyone who has, for example, gone from merely considering to planning something even as small as an act of petty vandalism realizes that.

I don’t think it’s fair to say that anyone had an illicit plan

very naive of you RE canada vs usa

Ya, I readily admit that

 

[TooManyHumans]

No, but it's a matter of teaching them (and all young men) what consent *is*.

Consent *is* the expression of a person fully willing and desiring to engage in what ever acts with you.

Consent *is not* a barrier to be overcome between you and the sex you want.

Somewhere along the way the message is getting lost and it's resulted in people that think consent is a box to be checked on the path to sex, rather than a state of genuine willingness and desire- and the result is them working hard to check that box- whining, wheedling, pressuring, gaslighting, "seducing", coercing, pressuring, and thinking that it's all ok as long as the box gets checked- but it's not.

That my partner wants to do that with me is literally the most appealing part of sex to me. Take away her willingness and it does not appeal to me at all. I really don't get wanting to do that with someone who is not fully invested in doing it with you.

 

[Melrose Munch]

As bad as hockey culture is, I have a feeling that other sports are even worse when it comes to criminal behaviours.

Football and basketball have players who belong to gangs and organized crime, and some have even been involved with murders.

2018 WJC rape squad is a gang for all intents and purposes.

 

[Frank Drebin]

Hockey culture is Fd up, it does matter what sport is worse. Hockey needs to clean this shit up. People need to teach and raise their boys better.

Most of this stuff is learned from teammates and coaches when the boys are often already away from home living with billet families.

Which may be an issue in itself. Kid leaves home at 15 , misses out on many necessary parent son talks because they weren't age appropriate when the kid was still at home.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

There were 2 names that had a lot of smoke around them and they weren’t one of the 5 players. One of those 2 had a strange career arc so far. Wonder if they are witnesses of some sort

 

[93LEAFS]

Tough to say. Should everyone from that team just have been blackballed? There have been quite a few players names thrown out over the past year and it seems some of those names for the time being were wrong.

Already reports that players were told to lie to their teams, so we really have no idea who knew what.

Most NFL teams have private investigators (generally former FBI agents) on call or official on staff who have connections in law enforcement to do background checks and get to the bottom of things. I would think any NHL team has the resources to atleast hire someone with a similar background in a short term consulting role to find out what they may be exposed to with their players and info on players on other teams who might be offered to you in relation to this case. If NHL teams didn't know, they likely chose not to know.

 

[JohanFranzenstein]

Not sure if it's been said or not (I haven't read 163 pages), but wondering if this is why Cahtah Haht was involved in trade rumors for the past year or so

 

[Number8]

Everyone who has been charged contract expires at the end of the year. The league isn't getting into a pissing match with the PA over what amounts to something like 4.2m split between 3 teams. They don't want to bring even more attention to it.

If someone had a deal that extended past this year, and it had serious money on it, we might see an attempt to terminate by a team. But, considering all these guys deals expire, and the organizations can just not qualify them in June/July.

They likely just get paid out for the remainder of the year, and never see an NHL contract again.

I think this is correct. And I suspect Bettman is thanking his lucky stars.

I do hope that the NHL at some time is forced to release "their" report. I realize this isn't per se an NHL issue BUT as your rightly point out, most if not all involved had an NHL contract at the time. Time for Gary to speak up loud and clear and say that this type of behavior is despicable and unacceptable -- and that any future dreamers of the NHL would be wise to think very carefully how they behave as young men and whether they want to risk their futures by being lousy people.

I know, I know.... lawyers, PA, blah blah blah.

But how f***ing refreshing would it be for someone in leadership (NHL, PA, Hockey Canada, OHL, CHL, etc, etc) to say "look you f***ing idiots, behave like humans or f*** off"?

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

As bad as hockey culture is, I have a feeling that other sports are even worse when it comes to criminal behaviours.

Football and basketball have players who belong to gangs and organized crime, and some have even been involved with murders.

Hockey Canada would love you , *look at them over there officer* *Way worst than us nice quiet upper class canadian boys*

 

[GQS]

Here's the thing. Hockey fans love to point out how worse other sports are but bring up their problems and they deflect. Do any of these sports have the management along with the corruption the way the NHL and hockey do? You know the answer to that. It's not just about the arrests.

I believe people are certainly biased towards sports that they enjoy and support and want to think the best of them, however if we're looking at a purely objective view I don't know how you can say with a straight face that hockey is very bad at all when it comes to the problems it has.

I think at the lower levels of hockey there seems to be more issues, but once players get to the NHL it definitely looks like there are very few players who are truly bad enough to commit serious crimes. I mean outside of this case where the players involved weren't yet in the NHL, how many NHL players do you remember committing serious crime or violence over the years where they ended up getting charged/arrested/going to jail? Extremely few.

On the otherhand look at the list of NFL players who have been involved in both minor and major crimes in just the past few years:

NFL player arrests database: Records since 2000 | USA TODAY Databases | USA TODAY NETWORK

These are arrests, charges and citations of NFL players for crimes more serious than common traffic violations. Almost all of the players belonged to an NFL roster at the time of the incident. In rare cases, a free agent is included only if that player later signs with an NFL team. The data...

databases.usatoday.com

That's a pretty crazy large list of players getting in trouble don't you think? Can you imagine the amount of outrage if we saw a list this large for NHL players getting in trouble? It would be insane and yet without looking it up I didn't know that THIS many NFL players have been getting into trouble because its so rarely talked about in the media anywhere. Heck I've seen 1000x more coverage about Taylor Swift going to KC games than I've ever heard of any NFL players getting into trouble this year.

I'm not saying hockey or the NHL doesn't have its problems, but compared to other leagues its doing pretty well especially if we're talking about players who reach the NHL and how relatively little serious trouble they get into. I think this is a case where the fact that something happens so rarely, it will undoubtedly get more attention when something serious does happen.

It would be like you hearing about a shooting in a US city and thinking 'Here we go again, so what else is new?' compared to hearing about a shooting in Tokyo and thinking 'Wow! That's crazy!' because such incidents are so rare in Japan. I think the same applies to the NHL where incidents are so rare that when something major does happen some people go overboard with the criticism and believing these incidents are a regular occurrence among hockey players rather than looking at the facts and realize that these incidents are pretty uncommon especially among NHL players.

 

[Number8]

These kids didn't have parents to tell them the difference between right and wrong? It's not Hockey Canada's job to teach that.

Bullshit. Hockey Canada takes millions of dollars a year out of registration fees from kids wanting to play hockey.

Meanwhile, they are not naïve as to the situations that young hockey players get into if they don't use their heads. They've got lawyers, a frigging insurance pool specifically slated for this, and seemingly a not insignificant number of prior cases to go to school on. They know that this is an issue and should be doing everything possible to fix the problem as opposed to sweeping it under the rug.

It is their responsibility to impress up upon these players that they are in part where they are due to the privilege of having access to things funded by payments from vast numbers of families/players across Canada (uniforms, equipment, transportation, hotel rooms, meals, drinks, etc, etc).

Those funds should not be used to facilitate gang sex by egotistical little boys who think they are the biggest hot shits on the planet. And that organization should not tolerate associated Pimps (yeah, I'm talking to you M.M. from Nike Canada -- you total f***ing scum bag) putting gas onto a flame that apparently is always on slow burn within Hockey Canada.

 

[GQS]

Hockey Canada would love you , *look at them over there officer* *Way worst than us nice quiet upper class canadian boys*

I don't think you should overlook the problems that hockey has, HOWEVER I also think alot of the criticism about how there are 'systemic issues' in hockey is often overblown in comparison to the actual number of serious incidents that involve hockey players over the years especially from NHL players.

As I said in another post, so little happens among NHL players that when something actually does happen it gets much more attention compared to say the NFL where bad things happen so regularly among many of their players that the media doesn't even bother reporting on it unless its something really serious.

 

[JohnBlutarski]

IDK if this has been stated in here yet but gentle reminder to the men on the website:
1) No means no
2) if you gotta get her drunk to get consent, then you're wrong
3) roofies are bad, if you use them you're a POS
4) get a solid verbal consent (maybe even written if you have money) before doing anything.
5) If you are in a room with 5 of your buddies and there's a naked (or clothed) girl passed out there, be the voice of reason and say "gentlemen this is not the way". Help her out and find her friends.
6) If you see a girl passed out, that is not an invitation to stick your junk in her. Get her some water and find her friends.
7) If she's drunk/high and you aren't already friendly with her in a more than friends way... probably should avoid the banging.

Always ask yourself "is this juice worth the squeeze?"

 

[joestevens29]

Bullshit. Hockey Canada takes millions of dollars a year out of registration fees from kids wanting to play hockey.

Meanwhile, they are not naïve as to the situations that young hockey players get into if they don't use their heads. They've got lawyers, a frigging insurance pool specifically slated for this, and seemingly a not insignificant number of prior cases to go to school on. They know that this is an issue and should be doing everything possible to fix the problem as opposed to sweeping it under the rug.

It is their responsibility to impress up upon these players that they are in part where they are due to the privilege of having access to things funded by payments from vast numbers of families/players across Canada (uniforms, equipment, transportation, hotel rooms, meals, drinks, etc, etc).

Those funds should not be used to facilitate gang sex by egotistical little boys who think they are the biggest hot shits on the planet. And that organization should not tolerate associated Pimps (yeah, I'm talking to you M.M. from Nike Canada -- you total f***ing scum bag) putting gas onto a flame that apparently is always on slow burn within Hockey Canada.

Honestly the amount of money Hockey Canada takes in they should actually be the ones helping to train these kids for all the off ice issues that may come up.

It's not just to prevent sexual assault cases like this one, but how many players have other issues that they aren't prepared for? Stress, money, depression, life after the game, substance abuse etc...

Always hear about how these guys weren't properly trained in one aspect or another when the bad happens, yet it would seem an organization like hockey canada could start implementing something especially when these kids start hitting these higher level National team tournaments.

 

[I am toxic]

Seems like the criminal investigation got a boost in November right after HC completed its (unreleased) final report, which could possibly suggest that certain incriminating evidence such as witness statements not previously available to law enforcement were referenced in the report, or other facts in the report lead to law enforcement obtaining new incriminating evidence. At least, such has been my impression of what happened. But as you say, we really don't know and quite possibly will not know until the trial begins.

Report on 2018 Hockey Canada alleged sex assault not released amid appeal | Globalnews.ca

Shortly after a final report from an independent adjudication panel has been delivered to "all involved parties," a notice of appeal was filed, the organization said.

globalnews.ca

What?

The London Police - as part of the reopened investigation - recommended charges in October 2022 more than a year before Hockey Canada acted on its report, which report I believe was actually done by December 2022 and then Hockey Canada sat on it for almost a year.

The Crown prosecutors took from October 2022 until last week to decide on laying charges, and with the tools at their disposal the prosecutors would not be influenced by what Hockey Canada was (not) doing,.

 

[Danarqhy]

I'm in no way supporting them, but you should be careful when posting like this in general.

There is a difference between being charged and being guilty, and unfortunately a lot of grey in-between.

If you read details about what happened, you'd know that it's likely sexual assault did happen based on multiple factors. There is also a (huge) difference between not being proven to be guilty beyond reasonable doubt (high bar) and being innocent.

Not saying it's impossible the victim made it all up and was a willing participant in gang sex, but I'd say that's a very small probability. People will have opinions as a result.

 

[Number8]

That my partner wants to do that with me is literally the most appealing part of sex to me. Take away her willingness and it does not appeal to me at all. I really don't get wanting to do that with someone who is not fully invested in doing it with you.

The problem here is that you sound like an adult. As a result, I think you're going to have a very hard time wrapping your head around the views of little boys like this.

Little boys who have literally pissed away millions of dollars and much of their future.

And you know what? I literally don't give a shit if they are guilty or not guilty? If their idea of a good time is to troll for girls that they can train, spit on her, jerk off on her, and then scramble for cover like middle schoolers after the fact???

I don't want to pay to watch them play a sport. I don't want to pay to watch them do anything. f*** em. Let em go work a regular job and talk about what a big shot the were back in the day.

And Gary Bettman is not dumb -- he knows damn well that I'm not even remotely alone in that view.

 

[andora]

Honestly the amount of money Hockey Canada takes in they should actually be the ones helping to train these kids for all the off ice issues that may come up.

It's not just to prevent sexual assault cases like this one, but how many players have other issues that they aren't prepared for? Stress, money, depression, life after the game, substance abuse etc...

Always hear about how these guys weren't properly trained in one aspect or another when the bad happens, yet it would seem an organization like hockey canada could start implementing something especially when these kids start hitting these higher level National team tournaments.

Took exactly what i was going to say

There should be an extensive resource network established for the kids away from home - mandatory classes and counselors etc that can only add to education and ethics - however the whole thing looks

Or

Actually pay to have families abilities to visit 2,3,4 whatever times a season. Biy a f***en house in each city with a team and time share it