They obviously didn't know. No police force in the world is calling NHL teams to let them know about a minor's charges before a draft.
Yeah, even his team in Finland had no idea until this week. Also
@UrbanImpact
This is pretty big news here right now since just two weeks ago another Finnish hockey player from another team was convicted of rape. And even in that case the team learned about the issue only after a reporter called the teams GM once the coming court proceedings were public. That's much more baffling to me.
This is what I'm wondering. Under The Youth Criminal Justice Act in Canada, his name would be banned from publication. Finland must have more transparency in their laws.
I'm not aware that we would have this kind of law. Probably not at least for these cases where the person in question is already an adult, even if the offence was done as a minor.
In any case Rönni himself came forward to the team about this (although only after some media reports and definitely not two years ago) and I'm sure they had his approval for publishing the name.
The information about the charges had already reached media, who did not publish the name but gave some crucial details: like the player in question had recently played in Finland's U20 squad and had also gotten some games in the highest level league. So naturally people were speculating a lot on social media and local message boards, looking for people who fit that description and so on. So I guess they thought it's better to just come forward with the information at this point, if only to shields innocent players from speculation.
Also, the unfolding of the other Finnish players rape conviction two weeks ago was not a pretty sight to see and his team got a lot of flack for not publishing and reacting to the information sooner (they initially only suspended him for a game, now after the conviction he's naturally gone from the team) . So probably this also affected the decision to come forward.
Edit: added / clarified some bits.
www.dailyfaceoff.com
sad times
