Is it different now? Maybe something more real? Now that members of Team Canada's 2018 World Junior Championship team are facing charges of sexual assault over what allegedly happened in a hotel room during a celebration of the team's success?
It's easy to shake our heads at the state of the game – the state of hockey culture, the state of our society, the state of our privileged young men – when it's all investigations and anonymous accusations. We fire off sympathetic tweets, add our disgust to the public pile, and then go right back to watching that night's game. Hockey continues and nothing changes.
But perhaps things will finally change now, with Wednesday's Globe and Mail report and the five players ordered to surrender to police in London, Ont., to face charges. The Athletic has not independently verified the report.
Because now there is a number. Five strong top athletes who allegedly force their bodies and their will on a young, drunk woman. The names have yet to be officially announced, but they will be revealed, perhaps as early as February 5 at a police press conference in London.
Only two members of this Team Canada roster didn't make it to the NHL, so at least some of those names will be the ones we've seen on NHL game sheets and hockey cards, on jerseys rocked by hero purveyors. achieved scoreboard video montages and poetic stories about their on-ice exploits. These are players who have reached the highest level of ice hockey and were well paid for it.
Makes the idea of a young man – known only as John Doe 1 in a 2022 statement detailing the allegations – inviting his buddies out with a drunk woman he had just had sex with, if this is a man, the we have rooted for? Do the allegations that these men forced her to perform oral sex on them be even more true when we own one of their jerseys?
These men are said to have slapped her. Spit on her. Ejaculated on her. Attacked her. Brought golf clubs into the room, which only intimidated her further. She was then filmed drunkenly giving her consent afterwards. Will we be even more upset by these vile accusations if we know their names? Do they feel more real and tangible now that we know that some of them have become rich and famous and admired and celebrated as idols for little children and lions?
This is Hockey's Ultimate Reckoning, a scandal that rocks the sport's foundations. It's not just these five players who are facing backlash. London police faced further scrutiny over their handling of the case and closed the investigation without charges until public pressure forced them to reopen it. Hockey Canada was turned upside down, its leadership forced to resign after the allegations surfaced, and it was revealed that the organization used a slush fund that funneled petty hockey registration fees to suppress allegations of abuse. And now the NHL must deal with the fallout and decide whether these players will ever play at the highest level again. It's going to take a lot more than a lawyer's statement of disapproval to get past this one.
It's hardly hockey's first such scandal – there have been countless incidents at the junior level, the grooming of Theo Fleury by Graham James, the alleged sexual assault of Kyle Beach and the Blackhawks' subsequent cover-up, and more. A sport that loves nothing more than reveling in its glorious history has closets full of skeletons from its past. We just cover our ears, cover our eyes and say that this would never happen here, not on my team, not on my favorite players.
But this issue is so vast that it is almost impossible to ignore. It includes the governing body of hockey's home country, one of the game's most prestigious tournaments (the World Junior Championship features the best men's under-20 games), several NHL teams, and the entire major junior hockey system that attracts immature young men elevated – No, boys, really – to the god-like status that sends them away from their parents in their early teens, replacing normal childhood with a pseudo-professional lifestyle that they are in no way ready for. These kids are placed in a locker room at age 9 or 10 and essentially never leave in an insular world with the same teammates, the same coaches, and often the same archaic, mindsets throughout their youth.
That's what all the so-called wet blankets mean when they point to a broken hockey culture.
Now that the seemingly endless investigation has settled into your head – be honest, when was the last time you thought about the 2018 World Juniors team after your initial disgust? – The hockey world can no longer hide from its past. The NHL released a statement about Salt Lake City's possible expansion just minutes after reports of the charges surfaced, but there is no major development big enough to overshadow it. No hiding. No ignoring the man behind the curtain. Not once do players disappear from rosters. Not once do we add names and faces and Jersey crests to the allegations.
Can any of this be fixed? The entire junior hockey structure – a valued and lucrative institution, especially in Canada – needs to be redesigned to better socialize and train players before they rise to fame and admiration. A new generation of hockey players must be raised in an environment characterized by empathy, humanity and decency. But does the hyper-macho world of ice hockey, which favors aggression and ruthlessness above all, actually want that? Is it even capable of this?
It's easy to fall into despair and despair, to lose hope and let our conscience take over our fandom.
But there are positive forces in sport. Sheldon Kennedy's Respect Group has worked with several NHL teams, including the Blackhawks following the beach scandal, to create more welcoming work environments in both the locker room and front and back offices. Brock McGillis, a fierce advocate for LGBTQ+ acceptance in hockey, has spoken to multiple NHL teams and is currently on a barnstorming tour spreading his gospel of “shift-making.” Players across the league are standing up for the right things, saying the right things, doing the right things in their communities.
Hockey isn't all bad.
But these upcoming charges remind us that hockey isn't all good either. And this time – with the players included that everyone knows and recognizes, active players, players we love and admire – it will be impossible to pretend otherwise.
(Photo: Getty Images)
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