The Decibel - A promising young player, a devastating injury and Hockey Canada

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

Neil Doef was 17 when his life changed. As a promising young hockey player, he was competing at an international tournament when he was paralyzed. For the last seven years, he has been engaged in a lawsuit trying to get financial help from Hockey Canada and its insurer.Grant Robertson, senior writer for The Globe and Mail, shares Neil’s story and addresses the questions Neil’s case raises about how Hockey Canada decides to use money from its National Equity Fund.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

And like I said, when I was lying there on the ice and I couldn't get up, I knew what was going on. I kind of, in my head, I got paralyzed. I can't do anything. That's Neil Doof speaking with Globe senior writer Grant Robertson. He's talking about the moment in a hockey game when his life changed. For some reason, just like thinking like, like is my hockey career over? Like what are people gonna think of me now? Yeah, just a lot of thoughts kind of go through your head,

just kind of worrying, just being like scared, just kind of, you know, being afraid of like the uncertainty of like what's gonna happen, so. Since that day in 2014, Neil has been focused on two things. Recovering from his injury and trying to get financial help from Hockey Canada and its insurer in a lawsuit.

Today, Grant Robertson talks about Neil's case and the questions it raises about how Hockey Canada decides to use money from its National Equity Fund, the same fund that the Globe discovered has been used to pay out lawsuits about sexual assault claims. I'm Aynika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Grant, thank you so much for talking to me today. Thanks for having me. Grant, what was Neil's life like before the accident?

Well, he was quite a good hockey player. A neighbor had a backyard rink, which he learned to skate on. He lived near the rink in Smith Falls. His friends played. His family eventually flooded their backyard so he could skate on. He lived near the rink in Smith Falls. His friends played. His family eventually flooded their backyard so he could skate there. And so he really is one of those typical Canadian hockey stories about coming up and spending hours shooting pucks on the driveway and breaking windows. In fact, he was a good enough player that he was given a scholarship to go play for Princeton University.

He was heading off to the World Junior A Challenge, which is a top tournament, sort of one rung below the World Juniors. And at that tournament, he was highlighted as one of the players to watch by NHL Central Scouting, which sort of ranks the players. I mean, so it sounds like he was a really promising young hockey player. What happened, though, on the ice in December 2014 at that World Junior A Challenge? The way Neil told me, it was really just a routine play, you know, a play that he had, you know, seen, you know, thousands of times. They were playing Switzerland in that game, and he was trying to get past the Swiss defenseman, and they sort of, you know, jostled for position as they were going for this puck in the corner,

and, you know, maybe bump shoulders. It's unclear, but what happened was Neil lost his balance and went headfirst into the boards. He was laying there on the ice, and immediately he knew something was really, really terribly wrong. He felt a burning sensation and a tingling, and then he realized he couldn't move. He couldn't get up. And so there were paramedics there, and the paramedics came out and just kind of, you know, just was like, stay still, like, we'll do everything. So I took off my helmet, put me in a neck brace, put me on the gurney, and then kind of like, whooped me out.

At that point, he realizes, even today, that his life was dramatically different at that point. Wow. And so what happened then after he was injured on the ice? Well, the doctors told Neil's parents, you know, this is a worst case scenario. He's never going to walk again. He crushed part of his spine, essentially. They weren't sure what they could do for him. What eventually happened was he came out of surgery and he was he started off paralyzed from the chest down he could move his arms he he had some problems with his hands but he could move his arms but he couldn't move below his chest and then he told me you know there was one day in the hospital where he's sitting there with his brother and his brother was sort of you know urging him to try and wiggle his toes. One day it happened. He was able to wiggle his toes and it started small like that. And he

was able to regain movement in his right leg and through intense physiotherapy, regain more movement in his arms. The left leg is still mostly paralyzed and he has neurological damage in all of his limbs. For example, fine motor skills in his hands are difficult. He said, sometimes buttoning a shirt can be a challenge. But really through the course of rehabilitation, he was able to go from not being able to move in a hospital bed to, you know, a wheelchair to eventually being able to get out of a wheelchair and walk with a walker than with walking poles. And today, you know, he doesn't walk normally. He's still paralyzed in that left leg and he still has problems with his other limbs, but it's really remarkable how far he's come. Wow. Yeah. And so initially then,

what kind of help did Hockey Canada offer him? Well, initially, you know, his parents told me the story about, you know, rushing out to Saskatchewan to be with him. Hockey Canada officials showed up at the hospital and said, what do you need? And Neil's mom said, I want his siblings to be here. Because at that point, the prognosis is really, really bad. And Hockey Canada said, okay, we'll bring them out. So his mom and his dad said, you know, Hockey Canada was quite good to us in the beginning. His mom, Bobbie Jean, she thought, okay, if there is money, I want it to go all to my son's rehabilitation. He moved to a hospital in Ottawa, and he couldn't fly, obviously, on a commercial flight, so they needed an air ambulance, and Hockey Canada also picked up the tab for that.

They were getting reassurances from Hockey Canada, they say, don't worry, you're going to be covered for the maximum amount of insurance here. They've recounted conversations they say happened on that front, and so there was no to, they thought, to be concerned at that point. And where was this money coming from originally? Hockey Canada's insurance or some other fund? Where that money came from was Hockey Canada keeps an emergency fund called the Health Benefits Trust. And what that's used for is for medical and dental emergencies, but it's usually capped at $5,000. It's separate from their large insurance policies, and it's also separate from their very significant, very large financial reserve funds like the National Equity Fund that we've heard so much about. Those are in the millions

of dollars. Can you remind us what the National Equity Fund is, Grant? Yes. The National Equity Fund, which is really at the heart of a lot of this controversy over Hockey Canada this year, is this large financial reserve. I've gone back through the books and, you know, some years it's exceeding $15 million, and they used it to settle the sexual assault lawsuit that was launched this year by the woman but as you say, from the Health Benefits Trust, which is capped at $5,000. Did you get a sense, Grant, of how much the doofs were spending, though, on Neil's recovery? Hockey Canada appears to have gone beyond their $5,000 cap to help out the doofs in the early days. But Neil's dad said, you know, in the first week or two alone, their cost exceeded $30,000 cap to help out the doofs in the early days. But Neil's dad said, you know, in the first week or two alone, their cost exceeded $30,000. So that gives you an idea of the magnitude early on of what their costs in his rehabilitation were. And then things that we don't think about that

show up in the documents related to the case, you know, he's got a lot of supplies that help him with day-to-day bodily functions and things like that, where these are ongoing costs that add up to about $10,000 a year. But the big concern with an injury like that is long-term physio and care for yourself, especially if the situation deteriorates, then his costs will balloon. So that's why they argue insurance exists to cover those things off. And so when did Neil and his family start to get the sense that the support they were getting from Hockey Canada, that that support might change? There's a conversation that Bobby Jean and Bruce told me about that they recall in the hospital in Saskatoon, where the head of Hockey Canada's insurance business said,

I'm really sorry this has happened to your family, but you need to understand that at some point I'll wear a different hat. At that point, it gave her pause and she thinks back on that conversation now. But still there wasn't huge alarm early on. The insurance for paralysis, you know, for full paralysis of multiple limbs is up to a million dollars plus an extra $500,000 if you agree to not take further legal action against them. And so they were comforted by that at the time. But what happened was, as Neil went through his rehabilitation, and a year after his last hockey game, the family gets informed that, no, after all,

he's not going to get the coverage from the insurance company. Why is that? Well, he was told that he was going to get coverage for the loss of use of one limb, which would be his left leg. But the legal dispute now is over how do you define neurological damage and paralysis in other limbs? So for example, he has neurological damage in his hands, but he can still move his arms. He's got clear neurological damage in his right leg, but he can still move that. But he can't sense heat or cold, and it certainly doesn't move like it did before the injury. The way the policy is worded doesn't really address those

gray areas. And so the family was told, you're only going to get $30,000 for the loss of use of one leg. So there's a big gap there. And that's why they find themselves in court now. It seems like in a way, Neil was almost penalized for, you know, for getting some of the use of his limbs back in a weird way. How does Neil feel about this whole situation? Well, I think Neil's very surprised to find himself in this situation. Like I think a lot of hockey players in Canada, he never thought much about insurance. He just assumed he would be covered. And he just assumed, you know, well, I'm playing for Canada. If something bad happens, they're going to have my back. We'll be right back. Obviously, Neil's story is so horrific, just in terms of

the seriousness of his injuries and how these have changed his life. But Grant, is this a one-off situation? Or how common is it that injured players have to challenge Hockey Canada for more financial support? It's more common than I thought. There are players across the country, you know, we looked at cases really that are in every province and stretch across the country and run the spectrum of the severity of the injury and the severity of the costs. Just off the top of my head, you know, a player in Alberta that had extensive dental work done didn't receive enough coverage for that. A player in BC who sued over a brain injury had to go to court to fight for that. There's

many more stories that are very similar to Neil, where the coverage available to them hasn't met the extent of damage. So Grant, because of your reporting that you've done, we know that Hockey Canada has money. In 2021, it reported that its total assets were worth more than $153 million. They get money, of course, from sponsorships, events, the government up until this summer, player fees. And we also know that some of the fees that players pay to Hockey Canada go into the National

Equity Fund. What has Hockey Canada said about the purpose of this fund? Yeah, the context of the National Equity Fund is really fascinating when you look at cases like these, and especially when you look at the events of this year regarding the sexual assault lawsuit. So Hockey Canada describes the National Equity Fund as a reserve of money that's there for claims that are underinsured and uninsured. So basically what that means is a claim that, you know, their insurance company won't cover or that, you know, what the coverage is isn't enough to cover for the situation or the damages. So what you see there is the definition of cases like Neil and like others that I spoke with, the amount of insurance that's available to him doesn't cover his damages. That's the definition

of an underinsured case. So you could look at the National Equity Fund and say, okay, Hockey Canada has said it's there for these situations. So why are injured players not having access to this reserve fund that they have? It's supposed to be used for sanctioned hockey activities is how the wording on Hockey Canada's audited financials states the fund is to be used. Well, events that take place in a hotel room after a Hockey Canada fundraiser in the middle of summer are not a sanctioned hockey activity, but the fund was used to pay off that lawsuit. And so when these players across Canada, and especially this question is being asked in Neil's case,

look at the National Equity Fund and the money that's there on reserve and what it's said to be there for. When they ask, well, why does our case not apply to that? That's a really interesting and, you know, I think a lot of people would say a very legitimate question to ask. What does Hockey Canada say to that question? I asked them about Neal's case and they've said, because it's before the courts, we won't comment. At parliamentary hearings, as they were faced with really intense criticism this year about the use of player registration fees through the National Equity Fund to pay off sexual assault cases, they said, look, the National Equity Fund is also for injuries and

other programs. Insurance doesn't cover everything. We're in a situation where we want to make sure that we provide and support families. And in some cases, we've made payments out of the Equity Fund for injuries that may not be covered to the extent they need to be from an insurance point of view. Now, they didn't give any details on how much it's been used for injuries. They gave one example of a player who was paralyzed years ago who received money from it, but they didn't put a lot of color around how much it has been used for injuries just to say that, hey, this is one really good thing that it does. So they refrained from saying how much it's being used for injuries,

but we know millions of dollars then for sexual assault claims. I guess I'm just wondering about the effect of all this grant. Like when Hockey Canada uses this fund for paying off alleged sexual assault victims and not for other things like injured players, like what effect does this have on the environment that's created by Hockey Canada as an organization? Well, it raises the question about why these funds exist and what they're used for. And MPs have alleged at federal hearings

that this was hush money. Liberal MP Lisa Hefner at one of the hearings made the point that when you have a fund that can be used in these escape any accountability, it perpetuates the problem. It's saying from the top that this is okay, and if you're accused of sexual assault, we'll get you out of it. You see a real disconnect about the rigor that they applied earlier in the year, in a case that was settled very quickly, to a case like this, where the family has essentially found itself in a legal battle that's, you know, seven years now. This is really a story about accountability and transparency, and what they've said the

fund is for and what they've actually used it for. Just to end here, Grant, I just want to go back to Neil. Is there a chance with everything that he's been through, is there a chance that his physical situation will improve? Well, he's hopeful. Yeah, I mean, you hold out that hope. I mean, I still do to this day. But, yeah, I think, I still do to this day. Um, but yeah, I think like as years go by, um, and you're

like continuously doing rehab and, you know, maybe you'll get like a little stronger, um, with like the muscles and the movement you have, but still like neurologically, like it's not really improving that much. So you kind of, you know, um, like come to the realization, like, you know, maybe I've plateaued as far as my recovery goes. Um, but like I said, like you, you still have hope. Um, I still have hope to this day and, you know, hopefully it changes. You know, one of the things that stuck out at me about this, about this interview was, you know, Neil and his family, they're not people that are looking for media attention, especially Neil was a very reluctant interview on this subject. But they also see the importance of

this case. They acknowledge that this case is about other hockey players across Canada as well, that the situation can't be allowed to happen again, they say. And and so, you know, that's why they're doing it. Yeah. Grant, thank you so much for your reporting here and for speaking with me today. Thanks so much. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Kasia Mihailovic is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor.

Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.