Front Burner - Sex assault scandal plagues Hockey Canada

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

What a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League and eight CHL players reveals about an organization plagued with allegations of systemic abuse. After settling a multi-million dollar lawsuit with a sexual assault complainant, Hockey Canada is facing mounting scrutiny. High-profile sponsorships are in jeopardy and the federal government is freezing funding until a parliamentary committee investigation gets to the bottom of what happened. The lawsuit brought forward by a woman, now 24, alleges she was sexually assaulted by eight Canadian Hockey League players — including former world Junior players — in a London, Ont., hotel room after a gala. The suit was quietly settled in May for an undisclosed amount of money. Today on Front Burner, a conversation with Katie Strang, a senior investigative writer with The Athletic about the details of the case, and what it will mean for Hockey Canada, accountability and sexual assault.

Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goltar and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and most of all true crime podcasts. But sometimes I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson, and a warning, this episode contains descriptions of sexual assault. Canada's got a whole lot of gold in a time going back across the border.

It's a world junior running off the line. In 2018, Canada's world junior hockey team brought home the gold, beating Sweden 3-1 in a Buffalo arena full of fans dressed in red. Flash forward to 2022, and the gold medal winning team and its governing body, Hockey Canada, are at the centre of a scandal. Last week, it was a grilling on Parliament Hill. When exactly did Hockey Canada become aware of the alleged incident?

League officials have been questioned on Parliament Hill, sponsorship dollars have been lost and others are in jeopardy, and the federal government has paused its funding for the organization. All in the wake of a lawsuit alleging several team members repeatedly sexually assaulted a woman in a hotel room. And that Hockey Canada officials ignored or failed to address systemic abuse. Today on FrontBurner, I'm speaking with Katie Strang, a senior investigative writer with The Athletic, about how we got here and what this latest revelation means for Canadian hockey. Just a disclosure, Katie works with my husband, Dan Robson, at The Athletic, and they've been reporting this story together.

Hi, Katie. Thank you. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. So I'm hoping first we can go through the details of the lawsuit, which has now been settled for an undisclosed amount. And can you take me through what was alleged to have happened on June 18th, 2018, starting with why the players were in London in the first place? Like basically, take me through that day. Sure. So they were in London, Ontario for a Hockey Canada Foundation golf and gala event. So it was kind of a big to do. They celebrate, you know, this gold medal winning world juniors team. There's a big gala at a convention center. So that's why this team is in London. And from there, we learned that after that celebration, after that gala, a number of these players went to a local London, Ontario bar where they met a young woman. The two groups started chatting and the young woman went home with one player and said that over the span of several hours, she was sexually assaulted. And that what began as engaging with one player kind of quickly devolved into something much different, according to the statement of claim.

And I was taking a look at the statement of claim this morning. There's some pretty disturbing details in here when it comes to the actual sexual assaults. And I wonder, just a warning for people that this is difficult to listen to, but I wonder if you can just take me through a little bit. Yeah, I mean, it is very disturbing. A number of the allegations are very disturbing. She says that she was in a hotel room with one player who is identified as John Doe 1. And then without her consent, there were other players who entered that hotel room and engaged in a variety of non-consensual sexual activity, including slapping her, putting their testicles in her face, sexually assaulting her. And to me, one of the more disturbing elements is what they allegedly directed her to do before and after.

She was very intoxicated, she said, to the point where it would have nullified any ability to consent. And then afterwards, she was both directed to shower and to not cooperate with any police investigation after this incident had been brought to light. Right. And I understand from the statement of claim as well, she alleges she was directed to state that she was sober on video. Just for clarity's sake, the woman is not identified in the lawsuit. The players were not identified publicly in the lawsuit either, although I do see that the year they were each born is included in the statement of claim. So is it fair for me to say that there are people who

know who they are, right? That is fair to say, although I should point out that Hockey Canada, the officials that testified before Canadian Parliament in June, they purport to not know who the John Doe defendants are. Because of whatever reasons of lack of cooperation or whatever, you were never actually able to ascertain who the eight people were? Our third party investigator, as you can appreciate, we wanted a third party to conduct that investigation for us. If they were able to confirm and there would have been discipline, it actually went to a three person adjudication panel.

That third party, nor the London Police Service, were able to confirm who the accused were. But certainly, because those birth years are included with each respective John Doe, it's fair to assume that the young woman who is the complainant in this case does know who those players are. Okay. So then I guess let's get into the investigations now. And how did Hockey Canada become aware of the allegations? As we mentioned, the alleged assaults happened in 2018. So tell me about how, when and where they were made aware of this. Yeah, it sounds like they were made aware the day after. I'd like to know, first of all, when exactly did Hockey Canada become aware of the alleged incident that occurred in London on June 19th?

We became aware of the alleged incident the morning of June 19th. You know, depending on the timeline, it sounds like this incident started on the night of the June 18th and transpired through June 19th. So depending on, you know, what day they're referring to. They found out the day after. It sounds like someone, a family member, contacted Hockey Canada. And how did you become aware of that allegation? There was a call put into our vice president of, at the time, Human Resources by the individuals, I believe at the time, stepfather. And had heard about this incident and expressed some extreme concern over what had

allegedly transpired. And in this Canadian parliamentary hearing, there was a loose tick-tock of the sequence of events from when Hockey Canada officials found out. It sounds like they were en route back to Calgary, where Hockey Canada is headquartered. They consulted with some senior executive members of the team. They contacted their insurers. They talked to, you know, at least one person, it sounds like, that was head of risk management for Hockey Canada. And then later that night, they contacted the local police, which would be the London police. Okay. And what happens after that?

The London police tries to conduct an investigation. And then also Hockey Canada retains a third-party firm to do a, I guess you'd say maybe a parallel investigation. We still don't know much about that investigation. However, one of the more significant revelations of their testimony in front of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage is that players were not compelled to participate in the investigations conducted by that third-party law firm. When we heard of the allegation, we communicated with the players that we had engaged with an independent investigation firm and that it was their choice to participate,

but that we would recommend doing so, but it was their decision to make. Hockey Canada recommended or encouraged players to participate in the process, but who deemed them not required to have to? I believe they made that choice on their own, either with their representative or on their own. But Hockey Canada strongly encouraged them to participate in the investigation. But it was not required or made mandatory? No. And depending on whose answer you believe, there was either, you know, between four and six or around a dozen, maybe slightly more, who participated.

And how many players cooperated with Heenan Hutchison? I'm not sure of the exact number, but I do know that they tried to communicate with every player. And I don't know the number for sure, and I apologize for that. But there was at least a significant amount of number of players who chose not to participate in that investigation. Okay, and does this dovetail with what you were saying earlier, that Hockey Canada is saying that they don't know who the eight players alleged of sexual assault actually are? How did they not know who these players are? I think it's fair to say there's a healthy amount of skepticism that they wouldn't know who these players are or have some pretty good idea of who they are. And if they truly don't know, why do they not know?

And am I correct to say that the organization, the Hockey Canada, is coming under a lot of criticism for allowing the players to refuse to take part in their third party investigation and still represent Hockey Canada, right? Like, I guess it's their right to not take part in an investigation, but that there were no consequences, right? It is fair to say you can't force someone to sit and participate, you know, in an investigation that they don't want to. And certainly there's the possibility that they were advised by legal counsel if they retain their own not to do so as well. However, there are other ways you can incentivize cooperation, obviously. And one of those ways,

quite, you know, sort of thinking pragmatically, is you can say all future participation in any international event or on any national team, any Hockey Canada sponsored function is contingent upon your willingness to participate. And to our knowledge, they did not do that. I'm going to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cups. I know you mentioned that we don't really know what exactly came out of their third-party investigation, but just to loop back to the police investigation, do we know what happened there? And you also mentioned earlier there was an allegation that the young woman was pressured to not participate, right?

That's right, And she did not. Because the woman has not spoken publicly, I don't want to try to guess why she did not and whether that was under duress, whether she was scared to participate, whether she had a feeling that it was going to be a robust investigation, if she had a lack of confidence. There are a variety of ways people feel comfortable dealing with a situation like this. But just to be clear, is there an allegation from her that there was pressure for her to not cooperate after the fact? I mean, that definitely was in the statement of claim that she said that they pressured her not to cooperate. Okay. The other thing I want to talk to you about is that, you know, the alleged assault obviously happened in 2018. But here we are in 2022.

The statement of claim was filed this spring and then quickly settled within a month, I believe. Hockey Canada has also come under criticism for why these allegations weren't made public earlier, right? Yes, that's correct. Okay. So, Coggy Canada's behavior is on scrutiny from the federal government. Whose decision was it in June of 2018 to keep this quiet? And why did you keep it quiet for four years? The whole management of the situation that is totally inappropriate.

We want to get to the bottom of this, and all options are being considered to determine the next steps. This behavior is unacceptable, Mr. Speaker. As you've talked about, executives from the organization were asked to testify before this parliamentary subcommittee about the decision to settle. And talk to me a little bit about why the government has gotten so involved here. So any national sports organization receives federal funding. And because of that, you know, they are beholden to produce certain information if requested by Canadian Parliament. And Hockey Canada does, you know, receive some government funding. I think it is quite a bit

less sort of essential to their operations than other lower profile national sports organizations. But it's, you know, the fact that they're subsidized at all by the government does give the government some oversight capacity. Okay. And I know one of the big questions is whether or not federal government funds were used to pay the settlement. And what have executives at Hockey Canada said about that? So they said that it has not come from government funding. They said that they have liquidated certain investments to produce the funds for the settlement. However, I think quite a few people have just made the note of like, it's really all part of a larger pool of money that even if it's not sort of earmarked for a

certain thing, it seems to me like a bit of a semantics argument rather than the actual question itself, which is, you know, is taxpayer money being used in any capacity? Did the executives talk about why they chose to settle? No, actually. And they were pressed on that, at least by one MP, I believe. When Hockey Canada settled the lawsuit, did you settle on behalf of only Hockey Canada or Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League, and the eight John Doe plaintiffs, defendants? We settled on behalf of all the defendants. Just to be clear, that means that none of the eight alleged accused contributed to the settlement amount, correct?

Hockey Canada took responsibility, yes. And to me, this question actually, it's been something that I've really been grappling with. You know, I've covered enough of the intersection of sports and the law to understand that it's highly unusual to settle a claim, and certainly that quickly, on behalf of defendants that you purport to not know. And they didn't just settle on behalf of Hockey Canada. They settled on behalf of Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League, and the eight John Doe defendants. And I would say that's highly unlikely. And I've consulted with legal experts, and the general consensus is that's very atypical behavior. You know, when you resolve a case via settlement, it is a sort of arbitrary monetary amount that you come to that is supposed to reflect and be commensurate with your level of risk exposure. And you make a settlement because you're doing the calculus and you feel like that settlement is advantageous when balanced with the

risk that you face. And so I think that's a very relevant question that we should all have at the forefront of our minds. And I suspect it will be a point of contention and inquiry in the next parliamentary hearings. It might be just be worth noting for our listeners here, but I think it was the minister of sport who said in these hearings that there's an NDA involved. The woman has signed a non-disclosure agreement. That's right. In fact, the way in which she sort of revealed that is she said that Tom Rennie disclosed that to her when she was first notified about the existence of this settlement. Tom Rennie is the, well, he was the outgoing CEO. I believe he's done his tenure now.

So here's something I also want to talk to you about because I know that you've spent so much time looking at this issue writ large. spent so much time looking at this issue writ large, the lawsuit, the statement of claim, it also alleged that the organization has, quote, ignored or failed to reasonably address institutionalized and systemic abuse and, quote, had knowledge that over the last number of years, its players were subjected to sexual assault and also encouraged to sexually assault others. And so can you tell me more about that, this bigger picture that the lawsuit takes aim at? What's it getting at here? I think what it's getting at is just how pervasive sexual violence is within junior hockey culture. And when I say sexual violence, I mean not just players being engaged in sexual

violence against non-players, but also players being subjected to sexual violence, even in initiation rituals, hazing, bullying dive into junior hockey culture and just how much sexual violence and abuse permeates that culture and the many reasons why. this pervasive sexual hazing, abuse, physical violence, you know, perpetrated upon young players by sometimes, you know, veteran players, sometimes by coaches, and basically sort of tacitly acknowledged and allowed within the greater hierarchy and culture, the alleged assault happened four years ago as we talked about many of the players from the gold medal, World Juniors team are now playing in the big leagues, right?

With the National Hockey League. And the NHL says they'll be doing an investigation of their own, right? What could it mean for those players? That's another big question because what we don't know right now is what the NHL actually has the power to do in terms of compelling them to participate. And you also then have to consider the role that the NHLPA

plays here. So I've talked to some people who suspect that the NHL is prepared to impose some supplementary discipline if a player does not participate. And I've heard some people that feel that the pushback from the PA could be so strong that it might be prohibitive from them applying or coordinating any discipline in conjunction with, you know, a refusal to participate. So that's the big unknown. What I suspect is they're going to take that whole roster. They're going to contact everyone. They're going to try to sit people down. They're going to probably want some contemporaneous questions being asked.

What I don't know is what sort of power they will have to compel players to even participate. Okay. And just finally, coming back to Hockey Canada, there's been a lot of fallout over this. The Canadian government is freezing Hockey Canada's federal funding. I've decided to suspend any future public funding until they meet two very simple but important conditions. The first, a demand that Hockey Canada share what little its outside investigators were able to learn about the alleged incident.

The second, that the organization sign on to a new independent national body created to investigate all types of abuse in sport. An agreement St. Ange says would help end a culture of sexual violence within Hockey Canada. The government is also apparently doing its own investigation. And then also there's been lots of sponsorship blowback too, right? Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire, Scotiabank. Scotiabank said it would shift money to smaller programs, Telus redirecting its funds to organizations supporting sexual violence survivors. Do you have a sense that there's a real reckoning happening right now?

Or what was your sense of sort of the overall picture here? As it relates to the federal funding, I've heard from several people that are knowledgeable about Hockey Canada's financing, that that will have really little to no impact, certainly on the men's hockey side. In fact, people have brought up to me that they think it could potentially disproportionately impact the women's side that receives funding from the government and the, you know, sort of the para hockey element of the organization could suffer disproportionately. So that's one thing to kind of keep in mind. You know, I think the

sponsors are certainly the thing that if you're Hockey Canada, you're more worried about, right? I've had some people even ask, you know, with all these sponsors heading toward the exits and severing their relationship, or at least pausing their relationship and issuing some sort of contingencies, are the World Juniors even viable, which is, you know, a good question. And I think you saw that sort of domino effect once Scotiabank really went out in front and condemning the handling of that and, you know, a very serious rebuke in the sense that we are severing our relationship. You know, we are pulling our marketing from world juniors. You need to comply with X, Y, and Z

until we're going to continue repairing that relationship. So once Scotiabank did that, that's when you saw a bunch of other partners and companies follow suit. A pretty remarkable development in my mind. And do you think that this is big enough to force some real systemic change here. I'm hesitant to ever like attach too big of a, I've used the term reckoning before, you know, with the Chicago Blackhawks situation, Kyle Beach. The one-time Chicago Blackhawks prospect who says he was sexually assaulted by a coach in 2010. Interviewed today by journalist Rick Westhead on TSN. On the Blackhawks admission, they ignored his complaints. Trying to win a Stanley Cup was more important than sexual assault. And I can't believe that. And that certainly on the NHL level felt like a bit of a reckoning.

But then I'm sort of reevaluating that, right? Because you're seeing a lot of the same themes that surfaced when that scandal surfaced, right? Institutional protectionism, lack of transparency. Now, I think there will be a level of accountability. I mean, the fact that there's governmental oversight and that the government has taken this so seriously is, you know, I think heartening to see. You know, I'm an American and I've watched plenty of congressional committees. Like there was a real bipartisan approach to those hearings. You know, they have the power to subpoena certain people to testify and to subpoena certain documents. And some of the documents they requested, including, you know, the settlement and the NDA with redactions, I think are going to be awfully interesting and probably will enlighten us about how this was handled, who's involved, and whether there's any need for accountability. And I think the fact that there are so many now people invested in answers, I do think that there will be some level for accountability. And I think the fact that there are so many now people invested in

answers, I do think that there will be some level of accountability. Whether that leads to systemic change, I don't know. That's a generational thing that happens over decades and generations. And, you know, so it's probably premature for me to speculate about the true impact of this yet. Okay. Katie, thank you. Thank you very much for this. I hope that you will come back on and keep us posted on this story. It's really important. Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.