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

[Frank Drebin]

I havent read too much on the role of this pizza guy. He came into the room, had a slice of pizza with the group and left because it felt like something was gonna happen with the girl or what?

 

[I Hart Conor Garland]

If I ask if you’re an undercover cop, legally you have to tell me.

That's Johnny Law Jr., Esquire. Pleased to meetcha.

 

[AzHawk]

Not responding to this case in particular but dismissing the fact that maybe there is some person that in fact would like to have a train run on them just because you don't like it is pretty silly.

I mean there are people in this world that stick gerbils in their ass for fun.

Maybe this was assault or rape, maybe its someone with questionable morals who is looking for attention. Either way we should wait for facts to make "factual statements"

I don't think the gerbils can consent either.

 

[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.

How is it deflecting to simply point out that other sports has as many if not much more problems than hockey and the NHL does? You can acknowledge that hockey has issues, but also look outside your own bubble to take a look at your competition and see that you're not doing badly at all.

How do you know if you're doing well or not if you're not comparing yourself to others? If you're just looking at yourself there's no perspective or context as to how well or poorly you're doing. You need to compare how you're doing to others around you and by that measure the NHL and hockey is doing better than most other sports.

So yeah hockey has its problems that it needs to deal with, but relatively speaking they're not massive and it has far fewer issues than other sports has like the NFL or soccer does for example.

 

[PunchImlach is Alive]

No, I think at least some knew. I've seen rumors that the teams actually believed this was coming sooner and the players would be suspended for this season, and I believe that.

The Flyers 100% operated like they expected Hart gone. They already had one of the league's strongest goalie pipelines, but they spent a 2nd and 3rd on goalies in the draft. Gave Ersson a multi-year extension after just a handful of games, a full year before his RFA deal expired. Accepted Peterson as a cap dump, reportedly conducted 0 extension talks with Hart to date, and yeah, tried to trade him.

Given that even fans could read the tea leaves that, if anything came of it, he'd likely be involved...I'd say the Flyers' actions pretty obviously aligned with it.

By virtue of the fact word came out of a settlement with Hockey Canada in 2022 and people at that point knew the team involved and the year it took place, I think it's a little hard to believe NHL teams weren't looking at their rosters at that point and going down the list of names of people who it could potentially be. How much they knew in detail, who knows if we'll ever find out but I agree with your suspicions. Not really acting like a team thinking they're retaining him.

 

[Sky04]

How is it deflecting to simply point out that other sports has as many if not much more problems than hockey and the NHL does? You can acknowledge that hockey has issues, but also look outside your own bubble to take a look at your competition and see that you're not doing badly at all.

How do you know if you're doing well or not if you're not comparing yourself to others? If you're just looking at yourself there's no perspective or context as to how well or poorly you're doing. You need to compare how you're doing to others around you and by that measure the NHL and hockey is doing better than most other sports.

So yeah hockey has its problems that it needs to deal with, but relatively speaking they're not massive and it has far fewer issues than other sports has like the NFL or soccer does for example.

Blaming it on "hockey culture" is pretty moronic, that would imply this is exclusive to hockey and doesn't happen anywhere else. It does, not just with athletes, or the rich and famous, this type of stuff happens to everyday people as well. It's a people problem in general, it's pretty sad but I bet you could find a similar story or worse in any city in the world.

 

[T REX]

Blaming it on "hockey culture" is pretty moronic, that would imply this is exclusive to hockey and doesn't happen anywhere else. It does, not just with athletes, or the rich and famous, this type of stuff happens to everyday people as well. It's a people problem in general, it's pretty sad but I bet you could find a similar story or worse in any city in the world.

I'll add this simple qualifier that is easily verified.

Goodell was widely attacked for the harshness of his penalties of players.

I mean attacked as judge, jury and executioner. He simply put the NFL logo ahead and over any player or team. Do not embarrass the shield. Perps were dealth with swiftly and harshly. You think Bettman operates anywhere close to that? I'll answer for you...he doesn't come close. It's opposite. Close ranks...circle the wagons...deny deny deny.

Hockey culture has a serious PR problem. Diehards can brush it off...and that's why the NHL is a second rate sports league in NA.

The what about other leagues is just deflection and sad.

 

[93LEAFS]

It seems obvious now but I don't think the teams really knew. They might have thought it would be tossed out. They likely knew zero details, especially the video tape. Ultimately with no clear message from the police they simply would have no idea what to do and would be paralyzed into the status quo. Even dumb things like that recent Flames statement are not because they are covering anything up or sweeping it under the rug. They just have no clue what to do.

The same will be true in 2026. Teams won't know what's appropriate and the status quo is not to sign them

It's pretty easy to be proactive in situations like this as an organization. Hire a well respected private investigation firm (in the USA generally former FBI agents, in Canada likely former high-level RCMP or municipal cops such as Kroll, who have a Canadian branch based out of Toronto) as consultants with strong links to police departments. That's how NFL teams often do background checks on things that sketch them out.

Those guys know the right people to talk to, the right cop bar to hang out at, and the right people to give them info that won't go to the public but can be obtained for private customers. These are companies valued in the hundred of millions and this is a minimal expense for them.

 

[Sky04]

I'll add this simple qualifier that is easily verified.

Goodell was widely attacked for the harshness of his penalties of players.

I mean attacked as judge, jury and executioner. He simply put the NFL logo ahead and over any player or team. Do not embarrass the shield. Perps were dealth with swiftly and harshly. You think Bettman operates anywhere close to that? I'll answer for you...he doesn't come close. It's opposite. Close ranks...circle the wagons...deny deny deny.

Hockey culture has a serious PR problem. Diehards can brush it off...and that's why the NHL is a second rate sports league in NA.

The what about other leagues is just deflection and sad.

PR problem is true, too much is downplayed and swept under the rug, associating the act itself (which a lot of the public is doing) to hockey is definitely not.

 

[SCP Guy]

Every player coach and manager associated with the 2018 team know the 8 players involved … Zero chance every single NHL GM didn’t know the 8 players involved.

 

[JohnBlutarski]

I'll add this simple qualifier that is easily verified.

Goodell was widely attacked for the harshness of his penalties of players.

I mean attacked as judge, jury and executioner. He simply put the NFL logo ahead and over any player or team. Do not embarrass the shield. Perps were dealth with swiftly and harshly. You think Bettman operates anywhere close to that? I'll answer for you...he doesn't come close. It's opposite. Close ranks...circle the wagons...deny deny deny.

Hockey culture has a serious PR problem. Diehards can brush it off...and that's why the NHL is a second rate sports league in NA.

The what about other leagues is just deflection and sad.

Roethlisberger raped 2 women and nothing happened. Watson was a serial sexual abuser and got the biggest bag in history. Ray rice beat his girl on camera. Plaxico shot himself in the leg at a night club and came back. Vick ran a dog fighting ring and came back. Adam pacman Jones seemed like was getting busted every other week for being a thug and he had a long career... kareem hunt beat up a 19 year old woman and still has a job... Tyreke Hill is a serial child and woman abuser, even beat up a yacht attendent last year yet he still has a job. Ray lewis murdered 2 people and is celebrated as a god. Alvin Kamara beat up a dude too and still has a job.. 'perps delt with swiftly and harshly'... the nfl only gives harsh punishment for weed smokers and people who take knees during the national anthem lol.

NHL has this incident (which is really more of a team canada problem than an nhl problem), the voynov incident (he never played in nhl again), the Chicago rape incident (coach Q still cant get a job)... and now this (these guys wont ever play in the nhl again)... cant really think of anything too crazy outside of these off the top of my head. Chris simon, marty mcsorely, craig mctavish and bertuzzi incidents maybe? (2 of those guys never played in the nhl again). Id say the NHL holds its players to a higher standard than NFL and NBA and on par with the MLB.

Fact of the matter is there are POSes in every walk of life. From your local burger flippers to the pro athletes. The NHL certainly has less of them than the NFL and NBA but lets not pretend the NFL is some punishment league. They dont give a single crap about player behavior.

 

[WEMCHUD]

Roethlisberger raped 2 women and nothing happened. Watson was a serial sexual abuser and got the biggest bag in history. Ray rice beat his girl on camera. Plaxico shot himself in the leg at a night club and came back. Vick ran a dog fighting ring and came back. Adam pacman Jones seemed like was getting busted every other week for being a thug and he had a long career... kareem hunt beat up a 19 year old woman and still has a job... Tyreke Hill is a serial child abuser, even beat up a yacht attendent last year yet he still has a job. Ray lewis murdered 2 people and is celebrated as a god. Alvin Kamara beat up a dude too and still has a job.. 'perps delt with swiftly and harshly'... the nfl only gives harsh punishment for weed smokers lol.

NHL has this incident, the voynov incident (he never played in nhl again), the Chicago rape incident (coach Q still cant get a job)... and now this (these guys wont ever play in the nhl again)... cant really think of anything too crazy outside of these off the top of my head. Chris simon and craig mctavish and bertuzzi incidents maybe? (2 of those guys never played in the nhl again). Id say the NHL holds its players to a higher standard than NFL and NBA and on par with the MLB.

Fact of the matter is there are POSes in every walk of life. From your local burger flippers to the pro athletes. The NHL certainly has less of them than the NFL and NBA but lets not pretend the NFL is some punishment league. They dont give a single crap about player behavior.

Now maybe there's some incidents i'm not aware of, but didn't all of these players play in the nhl again after their incidents?

Bertuzzi played after the Moore incident. Mact played after his vehicular manslaughter charge. And Simon played after his foot stomping incident.

 

[Melrose Munch]

How is it deflecting to simply point out that other sports has as many if not much more problems than hockey and the NHL does? You can acknowledge that hockey has issues, but also look outside your own bubble to take a look at your competition and see that you're not doing badly at all.

How do you know if you're doing well or not if you're not comparing yourself to others? If you're just looking at yourself there's no perspective or context as to how well or poorly you're doing. You need to compare how you're doing to others around you and by that measure the NHL and hockey is doing better than most other sports.

So yeah hockey has its problems that it needs to deal with, but relatively speaking they're not massive and it has far fewer issues than other sports has like the NFL or soccer does for example.

Because you're using the simple measurement of arrests, knowing that many of the crimes are not reported at all. Especially in cases like this one. This is not a competition. We're talking about toxic hockey culture. Why can't you just say hockey needs to do better? And again, you haven't addressed the issues with management and the cover-up.

 

[JohnBlutarski]

Now maybe there's some incidents i'm not aware of, but didn't all of these players play in the nhl again after their incidents?

Bertuzzi and mctavish (but that was a long time ago). Simon was shown the door so was voynov. Even mcsorely got canned from the league after the brashear incident.

 

[WEMCHUD]

Bertuzzi and mctavish (but that was a long time ago). Simon was shown the door so was voynov. Even mcsorely got canned from the league.

Simon played a couple of games after the stomping incident. After his suspension ended, but was shortly gone after that.

 

[Melrose Munch]

I'll add this simple qualifier that is easily verified.

Goodell was widely attacked for the harshness of his penalties of players.

I mean attacked as judge, jury and executioner. He simply put the NFL logo ahead and over any player or team. Do not embarrass the shield. Perps were dealth with swiftly and harshly. You think Bettman operates anywhere close to that? I'll answer for you...he doesn't come close. It's opposite. Close ranks...circle the wagons...deny deny deny.

Hockey culture has a serious PR problem. Diehards can brush it off...and that's why the NHL is a second rate sports league in NA.

The what about other leagues is just deflection and sad.

If they didn't know, they could have asked the Senators. This tells you this could have been dealt with last summer at the very latest. You're right.

 

[WEMCHUD]

Bertuzzi and mctavish (but that was a long time ago). Simon was shown the door so was voynov. Even mcsorely got canned from the league after the brashear incident.

Ah fair enough, I thought you meant out of the three I bolded that two had been bant from the leauge.

 

[Leafs87]

Every player coach and manager associated with the 2018 team know the 8 players involved … Zero chance every single NHL GM didn’t know the 8 players involved.

This seems like quite a bit of speculation, both about the entire Team Canada organization knowing and the assumption every GM knew this. Doubt Poile of all guys would not only trade for but also play Foote on his roster.

 

[JohnBlutarski]

Ah fair enough, I thought you meant out of the three I bolded that two had been bant from the leleauge.

I meant to add mcsorely in the original post lol

 

[red devil]

I havent read too much on the role of this pizza guy. He came into the room, had a slice of pizza with the group and left because it felt like something was gonna happen with the girl or what?

Agent says former World Junior player unsure of what he witnessed in London hotel room | TSN

A player on Canada’s 2018 World Juniors hockey team who was present in a London, Ont., hotel room at the time of an alleged sexual assault told police during their initial investigation he was not a participant in what transpired and left the room unsure of what he had witnessed, the player’s...

www.tsn.ca

"My guy got a text message from one of his teammates that there was a party going on with pizza, so he went up to the room,” the agent said. “He did not know how to process what was going on when he saw what was happening in the room. He did not know if this was consensual group sex or if it was a sexual assault.

“It’s true that he did not intervene and say stop. You can judge him for not intervening. What would you do in the same situation when you were a teenager? Is this something he should lose his career and reputation over?”

 

[PunchImlach is Alive]

PR problem is true, too much is downplayed and swept under the rug, associating the act itself (which a lot of the public is doing) to hockey is definitely not.

By Hockey Canada's own admission, they've called the issue "systemic" (Ahead of next hearings, Hockey Canada releases plan to address systemic issues). They've also paid out around $8 million in settlements across 21 cases since 1989. This is just what we know of from Hockey Canada which has operated as a secret slush fund to make these issues go away. I think it's naive to just view it from when it affects NHL players but having this many cases just at the junior level is pretty shocking. It's not to say other sports are cultivating angels but from my own personal involvement with hockey and other sports, there's a pretty significant disparity of these issues in hockey programs comparatively and the reputation that follows it. Again, it's not limited to hockey but development systems within it tend to operate more fraternally and collusively with management than other sports. If you have large organizations paying out hush money to make problems go away for players who aren't even pros, that's not a ringing endorsement of the culture.

 

[holy]

I ain't gonna lie, definitely glad this kinda behaviour is being brought to light and ostracized. Everything is so sexualized these days its gross how normalized this stuff has become.

I do feel a little for these guys having to get their bright futures stomped on, but it needs to be made an example of. This kinda extra freaky deeky shit is so unnecessary, like how y'all some hockey phenoms and can't get your own girl? Crazy.

 

[GQS]

Because you're using the simple measurement of arrests, knowing that many of the crimes are not reported at all. Especially in cases like this one. This is not a competition. We're talking about toxic hockey culture. Why can't you just say hockey needs to do better? And again, you haven't addressed the issues with management and the cover-up.

Why WOULDN'T you use arrests/charges as an important measurement when it means that whatever that athlete committed was bad enough to warrant police getting involved? It makes no sense to talk about 'toxic culture' and then completely ignore perhaps the most important part of it. We're talking about this case right now as a prime example of 'toxic hockey culture' and yet you want to ignore all the crimes committed by other athletes in other sports leagues to compare if hockey is better or worse than them? Really?

Why don't you simply acknowledge that you're discounting these facts because it doesn't fit your narrative that hockey is really that bad? I point out that very few NHL players have gotten into any serious trouble compared to a league like the NFL which has about 100 of its athletes who have gotten into trouble for minor/major offenses IN JUST THE PAST THREE YEARS ranging from drugs to domestic violence to armed robberies and then all of a sudden facts don't count anymore? Cmon now.

Also your argument that many crimes aren't reported when it comes to athletes is pure BS. Almost EVERYTHING a normal person does in public gets recorded these days let alone a public figure when everyone has a camera in their pocket and CCTVs are all over the place. Heck it became a major news story in Canada and in the hockey world when Auston Matthews flashed his underwear/ass at a female security guard who then got a nice little payday out of it because she was traumatized by the sight of his clothed ass and you're telling me that everything doesn't get reported? Yeah right.

With regards to coverups I'm assuming when there were no charges laid against these players by the police, Hockey Canada simply wanted this to go away and therefore went with the settlement. I think it would be a different story if these players were actually charged at the time and then you would have no choice but to talk about this incident publicly as its happening now.

And lastly what you're talking about isn't 'toxic hockey culture', its toxic celebrity/class/fame/money/power culture which IS NOT specific to only hockey.

 

[McFlyingV]

I ain't gonna lie, definitely glad this kinda behaviour is being brought to light and ostracized. Everything is so sexualized these days its gross how normalized this stuff has become.

I do feel a little for these guys having to get their bright futures stomped on, but it needs to be made an example of. This kinda extra freaky deeky shit is so unnecessary, like how y'all some hockey phenoms and can't get your own girl? Crazy.

This has nothing to do with not being able to get their own girl. It has everything to do with misogynistic culture in hockey. If anyone thinks this was about the sex and not about humiliating a young woman while flaunting their power and privilege then you really don't understand what went on here.

 

[holy]

This has nothing to do with not being able to get their own girl. It has everything to do with misogynistic culture in hockey. If anyone thinks this was about the sex and not about humiliating a young woman while flaunting their power and privilege then you really don't understand what went on here.

It has to do with seeing these kinda interactions as normal as well though. These kids having been watching this kinda shit for years online, combine that with the feeling of being untouchable and this shit is bound to happen.

It's even worse cause they obviously could get their own girls. But sex is so degraded that this kinda foolishness seems more normal to young people than trying to have 1 on 1 interactions with the opposite sex and actually giving it some real value. They would probably feel like "simps" but end up in a situation where theyre damn near humping each other instead.