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

[MVP Zacha]

Don't worry Hockey Canada will punish the 5 players (whoever they are) by announcing that they are banned from playing in any further IIHF Worl Junior Championships.

 

[VivaLasVegas]

When it comes to the law technicalities, you are not splitting hairs. You do things exactly by the book.

Particularly in criminal procedure.

 

[kingsholygrail]

Safe to assume Vancouver is unaffected by this.

 

[MuckOG]

They should never be allowed to play in the NHL again. It's a disgusting situation and from what we know to be true they should all be punished severely. What happened was criminal.

If convicted.....of course.

 

[super6646]

Love that song. Prefer this version over The Clash version too

 

[H3ckt1k]

You're allowed to speculate in here.

But probably not twice, if you know what I mean.

Can I speculate about you being my father

 

[Rob Brown]

It's possible that a player for that team may have officially found out that they have been cleared, had a mental breakdown, and had to take a leave of absence. Most of that roster has been under tremendous scrutiny since the allegations came out.

Or perhaps they cooperated with the investigation and everything is now coming to a head.

The public isn't owed anything if the victim does not wish it, and on the off chance that an un-involved player had to take an LoA due to the latest developments, we can wait until official charges are filed.

I mentioned this to a buddy of mine today - maybe one these players who has requested leave cooperated with the negotiation ('flipped' in a sense that they were honest) and now need time to try to decompress and separate themselves from hockey. I'm not saying that this the case for all 4-5 that are on leave. We really don't know anything.

 

[super6646]

One thing I would say to support the “no speculation” part: not naming names, I think it’s painfully obvious that 3 or 4 of the players who have taken leaves are related to this, but the other one was stated explicitly for mental health reasons by his team. It’s entirely possible that he took a legitimate leave due to mental health and the timing just absolutely screwed him. Either that or his team just flat out lied, which is pretty damning on the team if that’s the case.

From that point of view, I think the “no naming names” rule is totally legit.



What did I just read

Or he lied to the organization

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Given that when the Corey Perry story broke half the internet was saying he slept with Bedard's mom, I can understand hfboards wanting to be careful to not be accused of being the source of any false allegations.

Twitter has much deeper pockets but a privately run hockey forum seems like low hanging fruit if a player's lawyer is looking for someone to sue to make a point or hope for a settlement.

 

[Melrose Munch]

One thing I would say to support the “no speculation” part: not naming names, I think it’s painfully obvious that 3 or 4 of the players who have taken leaves are related to this, but the other one was stated explicitly for mental health reasons by his team. It’s entirely possible that he took a legitimate leave due to mental health and the timing just absolutely screwed him. Either that or his team just flat out lied, which is pretty damning on the team if that’s the case.

From that point of view, I think the “no naming names” rule is totally legit.



What did I just read

You just read why we shouldn't have junior hockey tournaments any longer. Clearly, this will happen again so maybe those privileges should be taken away.

 

[Dr Pepper]

Don't worry Hockey Canada will punish the 5 players (whoever they are) by announcing that they are banned from playing in any further IIHF Worl Junior Championships.

Sure was nice of the London police to wait after until this past year's WJC before releasing this statement, so as not to muddy the waters or anything, y'know?

Can't have any distractions! Maybe Hockey Canada asked them to hold off.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

All this seems to make sense until they casually drop that he was in there for 10 whole minutes ...... fishy

 

[Qward]

Welp, we know 1 for sure. Possibly 2.

 

[CanMerc]

Welp, we know 1 for sure. Possibly 2.

…….im at 4 for sure and 1 highly likely

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Can I speculate about you being my father

It's possible - I can confirm that I've participated in two-thirds of a threesome before.

 

[super6646]

Welp, we know 1 for sure. Possibly 2.

Someone want to tell him lol

 

[VivaLasVegas]

As others have mentioned, the delay in prosecuting this matter is disturbing. This does not seem to be a complex case, i.e., it is not like somebody had to subpoena documents from a Swiss bank that took five years to accomplish. Rather, it seems to be a bread-and-butter sexual assault case of the varietal routinely and quickly prosecuted in both the U.S. and Canadian courts. Would be interested in knowing exactly what critical evidence prosecutors have now which they believe justifies the charges that they didn't have within six months of the incident.

 

[Canovin]

All this seems to make sense until they casually drop that he was in there for 10 whole minutes ...... fishy

I kind of felt bad for the guy when he said, he kind of stumbled upon a group of guys having sex with a woman and didn't know what to do until he said he stayed there for 10 mins lol

 

[super6646]

As others have mentioned, the delay in prosecuting this matter is disturbing. This does not seem to be a complex case, i.e., it is not like somebody had to subpoena documents from a Swiss bank that took five years to accomplish. Rather, it seems to be a bread-and-butter sexual assault case of the varietal routinely and quickly prosecuted in both the U.S. and Canadian courts. Would be interested in knowing exactly what critical evidence prosecutors have now which they believe justifies the charges that they didn't have within six months of the incident.

Granted this has been an absolute f***fest of a case and the details are lost on me in some ways, but didn't the victim not want to cooperate any further in the matter, and that was why names never came out? Again, just based off my recall but this has been dragging out for a while now.

 

[AvroArrow]

Do you have receipts for the bolded statistic?

False allegations of sexual assualt: an analysis of ten years of reported cases - PubMed

One of the most controversial disputes affecting the discourse related to violence against women is the dispute about the frequency of false allegations of sexual assault. In an effort to add clarity to the discourse, published research on false allegations is critiqued, and the results of a new...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[H3ckt1k]

It's possible - I can confirm that I've participated in two-thirds of a threesome before.

I had no idea my dad was such a chad!

 

[CanMerc]

It's possible - I can confirm that I've participated in two-thirds of a threesome before.

Were you holding the lube too… that was my job

 

[Empoleon8771]

Or he lied to the organization

Very unlikely. It’s probably an open secret among NHL teams at this point who was involved and his team said he is under the care of a mental health team.

Could it be a lie? Yeah, but saying that it is definitely a lie is way too far. If we get another name later today from that team, it just shows the other player was taking a legitimate mental health leave.

 

[SmytheKing]

Given that when the Corey Perry story broke half the internet was saying he slept with Bedard's mom, I can understand hfboards wanting to be careful to not be accused of being the source of any false allegations.

Twitter has much deeper pockets but a privately run hockey forum seems like low hanging fruit if a player's lawyer is looking for someone to sue to make a point or hope for a settlement.

In the US at least, there's a law that protects sites like Twitter and this one from being responsible for other users posts or content. Some Republicans have been trying to rescind it for some time, but it's unlikely to be a thing that gets removed any time soon because there just isn't support for it (for what seems like obvious reasons).

That said, you'd still need an attorney to protect you in these cases and those cost money. Likely a lot in a case like this where the people allegedly involved can afford expensive legal teams.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Were you holding the lube too… that was my job

You should see the suggestions that have been submitted to us over the contact form over the years - although they usually involve me participating with myself.