The Spire

Ben Lepper ‘25

Chief Sports Editor

**CW: Sexual Assault**

I never meant for this to become a yearly column. I really didn’t want it to. But, the NHL has forced my hand yet again. The situation at hand this time makes my articles about the Blackhawks scandal and the Mitchell Miller situation look like light reading. We are witnessing what may be the darkest days in hockey’s recent history, and it’s clear the NHL will never be the same after what has unfolded.

For some necessary context, the Canadians won the 2018 World Juniors tournament. However, instead of living in glory, that team has lived in infamy; at a gala celebrating the team in June of 2018, there was an alleged gang rape involving a handful of players. According to the allegations, the defendant (who was intoxicated and therefore unable to give consent) went with a player up to his room for a sexual encounter. The player then invited more players to the room without the defendant’s consent, which is when they allegedly sexually assaulted her.

The defendant, known as Jane Doe, filed charges against Hockey Canada and eight players from that team, who remained unnamed. She claimed that Hockey Canada knew about the incident and did nothing about it. The organization responded by launching an investigation, and then quietly closing it in early 2019.

But after backlash from political figures and sponsors, Hockey Canada reopened the investigation in July of 2022. Players from the team then began to speak out against the incident and provided alibis while cooperating with the investigation. Things remained quiet for a while. But in January of this year, everything came to a head.

On January 24th, it was reported that five players from the 2018 team were summoned to London, Ontario, to face sexual assault charges. Around the same time as this report, five players from that team requested and received leaves of absence, citing “mental health” or “personal reasons.” Those players were Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Carter Hart, Calgary Flames forward Dillon Dubé, New Jersey Devils players Michael McLeod and Cal Foote, and Ottawa Senators prospect Alex Formenton. Rumors began to swirl, as the absences seemed a little too convenient.

Then, on January 28th, it was announced that Formenton had been charged with sexual assault. Two days later, Dubé, Hart, Foote, and McLeod were charged as well. Though all five players immediately swore their innocence, the optics certainly do not look good. While there are still three unnamed players from the original charges that are still out there (who at best sat and did nothing, and at worst participated in the assault), the fact that five of them have finally been charged is a huge success.

This incident has not only shown a lot about these five players, but the clubs who represented them. Obviously, I’m not here to tell you that sexual assault is bad. That much is obvious, and anybody who commits it deserves to spend a significant chunk of time behind bars. However, I am here to tell you that a few of these teams may be just as complicit in keeping this incident covered up as the actual players.

For example, last offseason, Flyers general manager Danny Briere was openly shopping Carter Hart around in trade talks. Why would he do this? The Flyers didn’t have any other goaltenders close to Hart’s talent, and it overall seemed fishy to openly want to get rid of one of their best players. When nobody took the bait, Hart still suited up for many games this season. The only explanation I can come up with is that Briere knew that Hart would be charged soon and wanted to rid himself of any sort of culpability. He would’ve become a hero for getting rid of Hart. But, after he couldn’t find a trade partner, he was perfectly fine letting Hart suit up as the Flyers’ goaltender. 

While the Flyers may have acted in a morally dubious way throughout this investigation, the Flames acted in a simply despicable manner by announcing that Dubé’s leave of absence was due to mental health reasons. This is disgusting. Either Dubé lied to the team, or the team lied for him. Men’s mental health is already stigmatized enough – there’s no need to stigmatize it further by doing something like this. Once Dubé was charged, the Flames released another statement claiming they had no knowledge of the charges. Nobody believed them.

The NHL itself is trying to cover this up, too – not even an hour after the announcement on the 24th, a statement from the owners of the Utah Jazz conveniently surfaced claiming that they’d love to have a hockey team in Salt Lake City. But no matter how hard they try, this isn’t going away. It certainly didn’t go away after Hockey Canada attempted to brush it under the rug in 2019.

I don’t have a positive outlook on the future of hockey anymore. I really don’t. The problem clearly goes deeper than anyone expected – the leagues themselves are morally corrupt, and the culture of hockey allows players and teams to act in bad faith and suffer little to no consequences unless the police get involved. All we can hope for at this point is for justice to be brought to all of the players who participated in the assault, and it looks like it will be. But make no mistake: hockey still has a culture problem, and there is no longer any way to deny it.

Copy Edited by Will Donahue