With sexual harassment allegations against several junior hockey players in 2018 Hockey Canada In the limelight, the national hockey body’s handling of the incident has attracted attention.
In May, TSN reported that Hockey Canada had settled an alleged sexual assault lawsuit involving eight members of the 2018 World Junior Championships team.
A woman alleged that members of the Hockey Canada Foundation worked at a hotel in London, Ont., after she was drunk.
On 2 June, a resolution was passed in Canada’s House of Commons calling on the House to “convene Hockey Canada before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to highlight its involvement in the 2018 alleged sexual assault case”. . , Was said.”
Hockey Canada president and COO Scott Smith testified on June 20 that the organization has been receiving one to two allegations of sexual assault per year for the past five or six years.
Smith and outgoing CEO Tom Rennie said players were not required to cooperate with the investigation; Instead, players were “encouraged” to cooperate.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Hockey Canada’s handling of the allegations was “unacceptable”, and added that “all options are being considered to determine the next phase” of Hockey Canada’s federal government investigation.
But experts say the allegation is not an isolated incident – Canadian men’s hockey has a long history of sexual violence and other forms of violence. Some gender-based violence prevention experts told Global News that addressing the toxic code of silence in hockey culture requires systemic change with a survivor-centered approach, in which the survivor’s needs and desires are prioritized.
According to Canada Research Chair in Physical Culture and Social Life, an associate professor of sociology at the University of St. Thomas, failure to protect players from sexual abuse and hazing has been a persistent problem in men’s hockey in Canada.
Allen cited the Sheldon Kennedy case, where the former player disclosed in 1996 that he had been sexually abused by his coach, Graham James, during his time in the Western Hockey League between 1984 and 1990.
In 1997, James was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and the Canadian Hockey Association banned him for life from coaching. After his sentence expired, James faced more sexual assault charges in 2015, serving a five-year sentence for abusing former NHL player Theo Fleury.
The Kennedy case was not an isolated incident. In June 2020, former professional ice hockey player Daniel Carcillo and former Lethbridge Hurricanes player Garrett Taylor filed a class-action lawsuit against the Canadian Hockey League (CHL). Carcillo and Taylor alleged that they experienced systemic abuse, bullying and sexual harassment during their time in Major Junior Hockey.
In July 2020, CHL appointed an independent panel to review CHL’s policies and practices regarding “threatening, abuse, harassment and bullying”, days after Carcillo and Taylor filed suit. The panel released a report in January 2022which found that there is “an ambiguous code of silence” that allows the abuse of ice to become a cultural norm.
Similar problems have been observed in other sports, including gymnastics. In March 2022, more than 70 gymnasts called on Sport Canada to conduct an independent investigation into an alleged toxic culture filled with abusive practices in Canadian gymnastics.,
Following the allegations, a group of former Canadian gymnasts launched a class-action lawsuit May Gymnastics against provincial governing bodies in Canada and British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan.
Allen said these problems stem from rape culture and general segregation or violence against women.
“They are tied to the violent culture of men’s hockey in Canada,” Allen said. “And the code of silence that exists within that culture allows violence to perpetuate.”
Allen said that while the allegations of sexual assault were being “exploited,” it indicated to her that the careers of the alleged abusers mattered more than those of the survivors.
“Hockey is very deeply tied to our sense of national identity … it was the athletes who were widely celebrated, they wore the (Canadian) flag on their bodies,” Allen said. “When we celebrate these types of men, it tells a story of what types of Canadians matter in the Canadian imagination.
“We see the team we’re celebrating, often the straight, young, capable men look white, and we keep them as the pillars of the nation,” she said. “When they turn around and (allegedly) rape women, we put that to the side.”
According to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, hearings will be convened on July 27 and 28 to examine Hockey Canada’s response to the sexual assault allegation.
Andrea Gunraj, vice president of public engagement at the Canadian Women’s Foundation, said solutions to ending rape culture “must be systematic.”
Gunraj said ending abuse requires “a real vision” in the leadership, where a “survivor-centered approach” to the investigation of sexual assault allegations must be implemented “rapidly and transparently”. . ,
The survivor-centred approach looks at what the survivor wants and how they feel, Gunraj said, adding, “It’s different for different people.”
“Some people want to go through a process to hold the abuser accountable, others want services, support and counseling… Gunraj said.
She said rape culture is about how common these abuses are, and “how often we don’t understand sexual assault” by blaming and shaming victims and even making excuses for perpetrators.
But to effectively handle the root of the problem, Gunraj said the right policies and practice framework are the keys to prevention.
“Policies and practices influence the way we look at the issue – the things we take seriously and the things we don’t,” Gunraj said. “I think it’s important to have that as your baseline.”
What has been done so far?
In 1997, Hockey Canada launched the Speak Out! According to the organization the program seeks to “educate and prevent bullying, harassment and abuse in hockey across Canada”. Website,
in one Statement Released on June 20, Hockey Canada CEO Tom Rainey told the committee that the organization is “on a journey to transform the culture of our sport and make it safer and more inclusive.”
“We believe that issues of abuse – including bullying, harassment, racism, homosexuality and sexual abuse – exist in hockey, as they do in other sports and in our society,” the statement read, Hockey Canada. From” is working. Long before the London incident.
Hockey Canada did not respond to Global News’ request for comment about its commitment to ending sexual abuse in time for publication.
However, Allen said that anti-sexual violence training could be ignored if leaders “do not take it seriously.”
“Many teams now have anti-sexual violence training, but I’ve heard from players that coaches and team staff often downplay it … they don’t take it seriously,” Allen said. “And when they’re not taking it seriously, athletes don’t take it seriously.”
Gunraj said this type of training can take a peer leader or peer-to-peer approach.
He said that institutions should have peer leaders trained by people who are in the field of gender justice, so that they can impart knowledge to their young peers.
Allen said the hockey field should be opened to experts in various fields to “disrupt the common sense that these forms of violence are okay.”
“If men’s hockey wants real change, it needs to open itself up to real change and that means welcoming in voices that have not been welcomed in the past,” she said.
As far as prevention, Kim Dubey, a PhD candidate in the School of Social Work at the University of Ottawa, said there is “a boys’ club culture in the sport that is being encouraged.”
“Obviously, I don’t think every athlete is in that culture; however, boys club culture is being tolerated and ignored,” Dubey said. “No one wants to stand in the locker room, because if you stand If you do, your entire team will probably tell you to shut up. Will ask.”
Dubey said society “should not idealize abuse, sexism, homosexuality, racism and colonialism” where people “simply tolerate it because they are good athletes.”
“We have to make athletes feel comfortable standing in front of their teammates and saying ‘no, that’s not cool’.”
“The game should be fun,” Dubey said. “It should be fun, it feels relaxing, helps you heal. It shouldn’t be a place where you fear being attacked.”
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