It's probably time to dispose of the CHL. That's the only way this will stop.None of this ultimately matters unless there's actual significant punishment for Hockey Canada in regards to protecting the male national team(s) due to rape and sexual violence. Sure, there was monetary repercussions, but most of that was either because there was a clear out (Nike) or because the pandemic meant that they needed to cut costs and had a good reason to moralize (Canadian Tire)
If this was a just world, then the IIHF should absolutely sanction and ban the Canadian team from competition until these problems were solved, and the Feds would withhold funding to Hockey Canada as well. But until that actually happens, all of this is simply kicking the can down the road.
Considering all that is shaking out within D1 hockey / the rebels in the BCHL and AJHL, that's not really happening either.It's probably time to dispose of the CHL. That's the only way this will stop.
Also, to my knowledge, there are currently two sets of cases that are currently ongoing. The 2016 one and the investigation in to the 2003 one. Do we know whether or not anyone associated with those events are still with the organization?
I specifically left the 2014 one out since the topic is about Hockey Canada and so far there is no indication that Hockey Canada had any role in the 2014 one.I am aware of three current alleged cases of sexual assault relating to Hockey Canada and hockey in Canada:
2018 WJC (trial scheduled for 9/2025)
2003 WJC (guessing this is kinda on the back burner until the 2018 is resolved)
2014 OHL case (just hit news last week) - 22yo allegedly raped by 8 players (ages 16-19) at billet house
Ridiculous clickbait headline from Marek to say that the report declares hockey Canada is "failing women and girls". He's correct that the paper (15 pages) outlines the beginnings of a plan to address issues and barriers, but they've mostly identified a bunch of questions that will produce a whole bunch more papers and ultimately come down to asking for more money. But the word "fail" doesn't appear in the document even once.
The most critical piece of data in the paper is that women and girls account for 19.9% of registered players in Hockey Canada. Basically, four men and boys play for every one woman and girl. Therefore, I would ask the paper writers to be very clear in what they are looking for with regards to, "Equity in resource allocation". It's fair to say that women and girls are put off the sport by underfunded and/or derelict programming, but I think we must also deal with some reality in the fact that women are not drawn to high speed contact sports at the same rate men are. My dad and I are hockey players, my sister and mother aren't, and that's because they have zero interest, not because Hockey Canada is failing them. Are they arguing that funding be allocated in this 4:1 ratio with perhaps some funds dedicated towards growing the women's side, or are they going for something closer to 1:1?
They also mention "To date, there is no ice equity access policy in Canada, which has resulted in ice time managed at the local level being given priority to groups with agreements that often pre-date the creation of women’s and girls’ hockey programs in their respective communities". Are they calling for men and boys hockey to give up their ice times? There's not enough ice time to go around, men's league games are already notoriously 11pm on weeknights, what is their vision of equity here and how can they build up women's hockey without tearing down men and boys? (build more rinks, yay! transfer ice times away from existing leagues, boo!) My wife might play if she could have 7pm ice times or weekend afternoons, but every single rink in the city already has those ice times booked for kids. I'm sure as heck not playing then!
Ridiculous clickbait headline from Marek to say that the report declares hockey Canada is "failing women and girls". He's correct that the paper (15 pages) outlines the beginnings of a plan to address issues and barriers, but they've mostly identified a bunch of questions that will produce a whole bunch more papers and ultimately come down to asking for more money. But the word "fail" doesn't appear in the document even once.
The most critical piece of data in the paper is that women and girls account for 19.9% of registered players in Hockey Canada. Basically, four men and boys play for every one woman and girl. Therefore, I would ask the paper writers to be very clear in what they are looking for with regards to, "Equity in resource allocation". It's fair to say that women and girls are put off the sport by underfunded and/or derelict programming, but I think we must also deal with some reality in the fact that women are not drawn to high speed contact sports at the same rate men are. My dad and I are hockey players, my sister and mother aren't, and that's because they have zero interest, not because Hockey Canada is failing them. Are they arguing that funding be allocated in this 4:1 ratio with perhaps some funds dedicated towards growing the women's side, or are they going for something closer to 1:1?
They also mention "To date, there is no ice equity access policy in Canada, which has resulted in ice time managed at the local level being given priority to groups with agreements that often pre-date the creation of women’s and girls’ hockey programs in their respective communities". Are they calling for men and boys hockey to give up their ice times? There's not enough ice time to go around, men's league games are already notoriously 11pm on weeknights, what is their vision of equity here and how can they build up women's hockey without tearing down men and boys? (build more rinks, yay! transfer ice times away from existing leagues, boo!) My wife might play if she could have 7pm ice times or weekend afternoons, but every single rink in the city already has those ice times booked for kids. I'm sure as heck not playing then!
So much of this will happen naturally if we let it. As more women play, more leagues will spring up to support them, and more research opportunities for many of the posed questions will present themselves. If there are enough new leagues, there will be demand for new rinks and that will lead to more ice availability. The "plan" this paper outlines might serve as some guiding structure for Hockey Canada as they continue to grow the grassroots women's game, but a lot of it is just recognizing that a growing demographic doesn't have the same grassroots support as an existing demographic. Hockey Canada should obviously take the lessons learned from the men's side and apply them to the women's side, and perhaps a bit of cash and energy will help smooth things out, but women playing a sport that men already play doesn't exactly call for reinventing the wheel.
It highlighted the fact that girl's team only could get one hour of icetime vs. one and half for boys. Just another example of "inequity" right? Maybe, until you read at the end of the article that the boy's teams did way more fundraising than the girl's teams to be able to afford things like going to tournaments and more icetime. The boys were willing to out in extra effort to get more benefits; that same opportunity is available for the girl's teams.
So this is one of those things that just begs the question - so why do boys teams fundraise more than girls teams?
Because I can tell you - it's not the kids that fundraise, it's the parents.
So why do parents on boys teams fundraise more than on girls teams?
I don't know the answer. I have three boys, no girls. So I'm kind of removed from the girls hockey world. I'm just not so quick as to dismiss those who say that hockey treats girls unfairly, even if nobody means to do so.