Earlier this spring, a woman filed a statement of claim detailing an alleged sexual assault that took place in June 2018 at an event hosted by Hockey Canada, the governing body for the country’s national sport. She said in the claim that she had been forced for hours to perform sexual acts against her will for eight men, including players from that year’s under-20 junior men’s championship team. In April, she asked a judge to award $3.55m in damages. Hockey Canada settled. (The allegations were never proven in court.)
Reassuring everyone that the settlement had not been paid with taxpayer money was part of the reason Hockey Canada executives were in Ottawa this week to testify at a parliamentary committee. And they wanted everyone to be reassured of something else, too: that hockey culture is changing for the better. “Hockey Canada is on a journey to change the culture of our sport and to make it safer and more inclusive,” Tom Renney, the CEO of Hockey Canada, told parliamentarians.
