What was she saying?
- We have found sufficient
grounds to charge
five adult males
with sexual as*ault.
- Five former Canadian
World Junior hockey players
are accused of sexually
assaulting a woman in 2018.
This is a pretty
unique case
because hockey has such
a special place
in Canadian society.
- This trial is about consent.
- This was her chance
to tell her story
and to hold people accountable
for what happened in that night.
- One pulls her ponytail
and another picks her up.
And you could see
they're all sort of sharing her
in that moment.
- I can tell you right now,
there's not one single woman
that I know that would want
to be in a room
in that situation.
- At one point, Brett Howden
texts Taylor Raddysh,
"Dude, I'm so happy I left
when all the sh*t went down."
My job is to report on facts
that I see, and so,
the facts are unbelievable.
Well, I'm in London
because tomorrow,
five players go on trial
for sexual as*ault.
We are gonna be here Monday
to Friday, every day,
for the next couple months,
just trying to do our best
to portray it accurately
and fairly.
And then, of course,
we'll be here for the verdict.
It certainly, it's interesting
that this case is unfolding
in London
because this is like
any Hockey Town, Canada. Right?
It's a town where
the London Knights
are such a high profile
and powerful local organization,
with so much influence.
You see that when
you, you know, walk downtown,
in the moments before
a playoff game.
Like, the London Knights
are perennial winners
in the Ontario Hockey League.
And again, the fact that
the trial is happening here,
you could make an argument that,
in a way, like,
the culture of junior hockey
is just as much on trial here
as the five players are.
For 100 years,
as long as hockey's been around,
it has been something
that Canadians worship.
In a lot of ways,
it's like the church itself.
And these young players
who come through
junior hockey teams
live a life of privilege.
They often have not been
held accountable.
And people who work in the game
will say this happens
everywhere in society,
not just hockey.
However, it does feel like
there's a lot of incidents
in hockey.
- If I had a daughter,
I would never let her date
a hockey player.
In early 2021,
I remember reading a story
that was published by
a radio station in Chicago.
And the story detailed how
a player who had been
with the Chicago Blackhawks
in 2010,
alleged that he was
sexually assaulted
by one of his
coaches on that team.
So, I wound up calling
the radio station and said,
"Hey, I'd like to do a follow
on your story.
I'd like to see this document,
this lawsuit."
And they sent it to me.
And so, throughout
the course of that summer,
I wound up doing almost
50 stories on this case.
And the story turned out
to be one
where it was clear
the Blackhawks wanted to turn
a blind eye to this allegation.
They did not want
to investigate.
All the players
in the locker-room
knew it was happening.
And that player,
who is Kyle Beach,
came on TSN and
did an interview with us
that ran almost 28 minutes.
- I am a survivor.
And I know I'm not alone.
And I buried this for 10 years,
11 years.
And it's destroyed me
from the inside out.
And I hope that
this entire process
can make a systematic change
to make sure this never
happens again.
- The day after we did that
interview with Kyle Beach,
my emails and my direct messages
started blowing up
with other people
wanting to tell their stories.
And in the four years
since we did that interview
with Kyle Beach,
a week has not gone by
that I have not received tips
about abuse and harassment
in Canadian sports.
Well, this case started
when I was working on a soccer,
and I was zipping around
in Belgrade, scouting locations.
And my phone rang.
I didn't know
who the caller was.
And so, I didn't pick it up,
and they, you know, rang again,
and rang again and rang again,
and finally I answered it.
And the person told me
I need to get
to London, Ontario,
and pull this file,
because it was really important
to sports in Canada
and to the future
of Canadian hockey,
and I needed to know
what was going on.
And so I did.
And I remember being shocked
by what I was reading,
and forwarding it
to my teammates at TSN,
basically saying,
"Brace yourself.
The stuff that's in this lawsuit
is really bad."
A woman, who is referred to
in court documents as E.M.,
had filed a $3.5 million lawsuit
against Hockey Canada,
the Canadian Hockey League,
and eight players who were
referred to as John Does.
And the allegations in that
lawsuit were horrible,
outlining what she said
was a sexual as*ault
that took place in a hotel,
here in London,
over the course of one evening
and into early morning
in June 2018
after a golf and gala event
that Hockey Canada hosted.
In a statement
released last night,
Hockey Canada said,
"As soon as it became aware
of this matter in 2018,
it contacted local police
authorities to inform them."
- I think the initial police
investigation
could be best described
as rudimentary.
I'm not aware of any
cell phones being seized
at that point, any court orders,
any searches,
any really in-depth inquiry.
I think it was more
of taking E.M.'s statements
and almost placating her
with some activity.
- There was 20 players
on that team,
and the police closed
their investigation
after interviewing four.
Two of them in person.
Well, it was
by February 2019,
the police made the call
there'd be no charges laid.
And there was a period
of sort of reflection
and regression. And ultimately,
E.M. reappeared and wanted
to seek accountability.
The primary route,
my recommendation,
is through lawsuit.
And she voluntarily took
a polygraph
with respect to her statement
of what happened that night,
and passed it.
- The polygraph process
takes about
two-and-a-half to three hours.
It's at 90 to 95% accurate.
I was involved initially
on the civil side.
Did a polygraph for the victim,
E.M.
I read the synopsis,
prepared the questions.
Based on that,
I went to their office,
conducted the test there.
I came to the conclusion that...
that she was being truthful.
- Her result was neither
deceptive nor unreliable.
It was well into the reliable,
truthful zone.
- Hockey Canada came on
pretty strong and fast
and resolved the case,
I think, within 34 days.
So, a civil lawsuit
was the last option,
not the first.
And I think that should be
crystal clear.
E.M. wanted this very private,
and I was a little surprised
at how quick it leaked out.
That reporting really
jarred Canadians.
If you remember, it led to
a parliamentary hearing.
It led to complete upheaval
of Hockey Canada,
where some of the most
senior members
of that organization
were forced out.
And there was outrage
when Canadians learned
that Hockey Canada had
maintained this slush fund
to pay off sexual as*ault
allegations,
which was kept a secret
from the Canadian public.
- It settled 21 sexual
misconduct claims since 1989,
totalling close to $9 million
in compensation.
- The story had broken around
May of that year.
So, once that hit the media,
I think our service just kind of
wanted to make sure
that everything was done
as well as it could have been.
So, the day I was assigned
the case,
I reviewed it that morning,
and then I called her.
I wanted her to know from me
that we were going to be
reopening the investigation.
She was upset.
She said that she thought
that this phase
was going to be done.
With the civil trial being over,
she thought that she was going
to be moving on.
So, I think this was hard
for her, yeah.
My assessment was that
more could have been done.
I found some gaps
in the investigation
that I thought could be filled.
And I thought that there was
just more information out there
that could have helped us
come to a more
informed conclusion,
if that makes sense.
- We begin with breaking news.
London Police are reopening
a criminal investigation
related to the 2018 sexual
as*ault allegations
involving former CHL
and World Juniors players.
- I wanted to interview
everybody.
'Cause the thing
about hockey players
is that teammates talk, right?
So, I knew even if some players
didn't have firsthand
knowledge,
I knew not every player
was in the room that night,
I just knew there was more
information out there, right?
So, obviously, I wanted to know
who was in the room,
sort of who did what,
who said what, who saw what?
But I also wanted to know
who heard what.
I quickly formed grounds
to believe that
a criminal offence
had been committed,
and the players
and their lawyers
learned about that
because they found out
that we had written warrants
to obtain certain information.
So, they chose not to cooperate
with the investigation,
which is, they're well within
the right to do that.
But that did put up
some walls for us.
Not long after the event,
some players had changed phones.
So whether there was any
ill intent,
whether they were doing it
for any particular reason,
or maybe, you know,
their cell phone plan was up.
We don't know.
And then I came up with
my assessment,
which was that I did feel
that those five players
committed sexual as*ault
that night, and then I gave it
over to the Crown.
And it wasn't until
January 2024
that we learned that five
of the players involved in this
were going to be charged.
- I want to extend
on behalf of
the London Police Service
my sincerest apology
to the victim...
to her family...
for the amount of time
that it has taken
to reach this point.
- Rick Westhead,
he uncovered this story
and he stayed on this story.
And I think he gets a lot of
credit for breaking the story,
and not enough for just
being dogged
and seeing it through.
It's a good lesson to all of us
that the hard stories
are the ones
that need to be told.
- Journalism has taken
some punches in recent years,
right? The...
The public trust of what we do
has never been lower.
There's disinformation
everywhere.
There's social media
pressures that,
where some of them
are self-inflicted,
where people feel like they have
to chase retweets and likes,
and follower counts,
and you know,
do things for the algorithm.
But...
I think that when you look
at stories
that take a real investment
of resources and time,
and that's this story,
this has taken a long time
and a lot of resources,
there's a public good in this.
And the public is served
by having media
that do take their time,
and that are invested
in doing journalism,
and that are committed
to holding
powerful organizations
accountable
and speaking truth to power.
It's still important.
First one here.
You want to be
in the courtroom because...
what we do as journalists
is more than write down
what people say, it's observing.
It's watching the mannerisms
of jurors.
It's watching how
they respond to testimony.
It's watching body language.
The judges, the defendants,
are they sitting up straight
in their chairs?
Are they talking
a lot to their lawyers?
Are they taking notes?
It's worth getting up early for,
for sure, to make sure
that you're going to be able
to document that in person.
- It's really a unique case
as it relates
to sexual as*ault cases
and the impact on communities.
- The Crown Attorney
on this case,
Meaghan Cunningham, is the chair
of a sexual violence group
for the province of Ontario.
The Defence lawyers in this case
are the best lawyers
in the province
when it comes to defending
these types of cases.
So, this is like the best
of the best in the legal world.
It's going to be a nuanced,
heavyweight fight.
The standard of proof for
a criminal sexual as*ault trial
is really high.
This is a jury trial,
and so, that means that
for these players
to be convicted,
each of those 12 jurors
is going to have to believe
that this case has been proven
beyond a reasonable doubt.
- To be crystal clear,
there's no money in this
for E.M., her civil case
is done and gone.
There's no ability to re-sue.
The players and the leagues
and everything are all
signed off. So, this is strictly
a criminal prosecution
with no ulterior motive,
and I think that people
need to understand that.
- You know, she didn't have
to prove anything to anybody.
Her family loved her,
believed her.
She felt that this was
the right thing to do.
She felt she should stand up
for others
and for herself,
and hold those responsible
accountable.
- It's not how much she drank.
It's not what she was wearing.
It's not the type of guy
she wanted to have sex with
that night.
This trial is about consent.
And did the accused
get consent
from her for each sexual act?
Did she give consent freely
and enthusiastically?
And that is what this trial
is about.
Yeah, well, we're back
in court tomorrow morning
at 9:30, and we will hear
the government,
the Crown Prosecutor, you know,
detail the government's case
against these five
co-defendants.
Well, today was a very long day.
It was just really interesting
to watch, you know,
kind of firsthand how
the justice system works.
Today was also interesting
because it was the first time
that we'd actually seen
all of these five
hockey players, co-defendants,
in a courtroom together
at the same time.
And so, we saw Michael McLeod
come in,
you know, a former prospect
with the New Jersey Devils.
You know,
we saw Carter Hart come in,
the goalie
for the Philadelphia Flyers,
not too long ago.
There was Dillon Dub,
who was the captain of that 2018
World Juniors team
for Canada and a player
in the Calgary Flames system.
And then you had Cal Foote,
you know, another pro prospect.
And Alex Formenton,
who had been a forward
with the Ottawa Senators.
So, you know, all those players
came in
clean-shaven,
wearing dark suits
and white dress shirts,
you know, looking...
looking every bit
like the kind of players
that we see walking
into hockey rinks
with a cup of coffee before
important NHL playoff games.
Pretty striking difference,
though,
where they were going today.
It's hard to imagine
what it feels like to know
that your,
you know, your freedom
is on the line,
that your life's hanging
in the balance,
that you could be found guilty
of a crime and go to prison.
We've been here before
with hockey
and with incidents
that shouldn't happen.
And every time something
happens that's really bad,
there's a promise like,
oh, we've got to make sure
it never happens again.
And then, you know, I wonder if
people really have followed
through on these promises
to make change and improve
the safety measures?
Because the news cycle
moves fast
and people's attention,
you know,
shifts to the next thing
so quickly.
So, the window to try
to affect change
and try to like,
convince the federal government,
for instance, to do a better job
at holding sports
organizations accountable,
that window is not...
not very big.
We're going to meet today
with Olivier Dubois.
He's the captain
of the Sherbrooke team
in the Quebec Maritime
Junior Hockey League.
And he's going to talk to us
about his experiences
playing junior hockey
and how he...
is trying to make the game
better for young players
that are coming after him.
- Hey.
- Good morning. Bon matin.
- How are you?
- Nice to see you.
- Yeah.
- How are you today?
- Great.
Good. Great, great, you?
- Thank you.
- That's my billet house.
- This is the billet house, eh?
- Yeah.
It's a big, beautiful place.
- This is where you spend
all your time sleeping.
- Yeah. And eating.
- And eating.
The two things
hockey players do well.
- Yeah, really.
I've played hockey
my whole life,
basically, since I was like,
two years old.
When I grew up, it was always
all about hockey.
And I entered the league
when I was 17
in Rouyn-Noranda,
and then it's been three years
since I'm in Sherbrooke.
It's hard to describe
how difficult that is
when you go away
when you're 16 or 17.
Maybe you're not even really
shaving yet,
and you're playing with guys
who are 20, who are men.
- Yeah, it's... the gap,
it's only four or five years,
but at this time of our life,
it's a big difference.
When you're 16, 17, you...
you don't know nothing about
how the cues work
and how lives work, even.
- Can I ask you a little bit
about some of the pressures
that you felt regarding
alcohol and girls?
- I didn't drink before,
that much.
Um, I was in secondary
and didn't have that time.
And I was not a party guy
either, so...
But then in Rouyn-Noranda,
it was like,
everyone's drunk, so you said,
everyone seemed to have fun,
they're drunk,
and I'm gonna get drunk too,
to fit with them.
So it's, I don't think
it's a, maybe that's...
the pressure you put to yourself
just to fit in,
to be accepted as a group.
Maybe that's why the pressure
is there for drinking.
- What about the attitudes
the players had then
towards young women,
towards girls?
- I think it's a big part
of our conversation.
When I entered the league,
they told me,
you have a girlfriend,
no you don't need a girlfriend,
you need to...
to live the life
of a hockey QMJ player.
Live the life of everything.
It's the party,
the girls, everything.
But with experience,
with maturity,
I feel it's stupid
because you're here,
we're here to play hockey
and to study.
And when you start
focusing on girls,
or whatever the outcome of it,
you focus less on working hard,
performing in school
and in hockey.
The part about this
trial in London
that I was least excited about
was missing hockey
with my buddies
and playing on the weekend, too.
So, this is really
going to be nice
to get back and skate
a little bit.
Oh!
I grew up in a small
town, Brockville, Ontario.
Played AAA up until the age
of 16,
where I was lucky enough to go
to Ridley College and play.
And then I ended up going
to school at Acadia University
to do my undergrad,
where I joined the Acadia Axemen
for two years.
What are some
of the things you've seen
or heard about?
- Well, a lot of people
think that hazing
and group cohesion are,
it's the same, right?
If you get,
or if you're hazing someone,
it's adding to group cohesion,
which is not true at all.
- Right.
- There's a complete difference
between team building
and hazing.
And a lot of players, I feel,
put themselves
in these situations,
or agree to get hazed
because they just want
to be part of the team, right?
Because players,
what they fear the most
is not being part of the group.
Yes, exactly.
- What have you seen that way
in terms of the guys
that you've played with,
how they treat women,
how they deal with women?
- You know, people shrug it off
as locker-room talk
or just boys being boys or...
- What kind of talk?
- Just about, like,
how many girls you've been with.
Or, you know, like,
did you have sex on the weekend?
Or did you take that girl home
from the bar?
Um, and I think that's just
so normalized that,
like, people don't actually,
like, really, like,
take a second and think back
to, like, you know,
we're, you know, degrading
and objectifying women.
And then I think it affects,
you know, players later on
after they're done hockey,
like, how they socialize
with women outside of,
you know, the hockey rink.
- Have you heard, like,
in the context of talking
about women, this phrase,
like, "the k*ll count",
referring to how many women
somebody's slept with?
- Yeah, that's a large part
of the game.
Is, it's almost like
a hierarchy, right?
The more girls you slept with,
the more kind of respect
you get,
which is just insane
to think about.
Like, that's kind of like
how it runs.
People don't think
that it's actually something,
like a cause for concern.
If we don't talk about it,
then nothing's going to change,
and we're going to continue
to, you know,
see these sexual as*ault
allegations, these hazing,
these abuse charges.
- Just days after it started,
an Ontario judge declared
a mistrial.
The Crown made
their opening statement,
and it was, I thought, like,
a very strong opening statement.
And then we were all dismissed
for lunch.
And there's, you know,
there's limited options
you can go to for lunch.
But there's like,
this crowded marketplace.
When we came back from lunch,
the judge said something
to the effect of,
something happened
at the lunch break
that we're going to need
to address.
- You know, one of the lawyers
bumped into a juror
at a market that's right around
the corner from the courthouse
over the lunch hour,
and they had some sort
of conversation,
and then that blew up.
- She was behind the attorney
in line.
The attorney turns to her
and says something
to the effect of,
"There's a lot of head nodding
this morning."
And so anyways, this juror
tells her friend on the jury,
That juror is like, "Wow,
that doesn't sound proper."
- The judge determined
that the jury pool
had been tainted
because they had shared
with one another
what these lawyers
allegedly did in the market.
I just think it goes to show
how easily a jury pool
can be tainted or a juror
can have the wrong impression.
- The woman at the centre
of a high-profile trial
of five former World Junior
hockey players
testified today about
the night in 2018
when she says she was
sexually assaulted.
- Her first couple of days
were incredibly compelling,
and I found her to be
a very credible witness.
And part of the reason
I feel that way
is I was surprised
with how upfront and transparent
she was about
what she did not know
and what she did not remember.
She was very forthright
about saying,
"I don't know who that was."
"I'm not sure about that."
"I don't recall."
- She just wanted to get
her story out there,
her truth out there,
which I know
Justice Carroccia didn't like,
but um...
We didn't know what to expect.
You never know what to expect
from a victim
when it comes to testifying.
But, yeah, she blew me away.
- Well, this is downtown London.
This is Richmond Street.
And on the night
of June 18th, 2018,
Hockey Canada gathered here
with members of Canada's
2018 World Junior team
to celebrate their gold medal
and to give the players
championship rings.
When the ceremony was over,
the players went back
to the hotel
and then went out to party.
So, the players came here
to Jack's Bar across the street.
There was a call made
ahead of time
so they wouldn't have to wait
on line.
So, but the Team Canada players
came in,
skipped the line,
and went right in.
So, the surveillance video
footage shows that
they got here around 11:30,
roughly the same time
that E.M. arrived
in the bar with her friends.
- You know, this isn't some
fan of hockey at any level.
It's really just coincidence
that these are the people
that, you know, she ran into,
or they ran into her.
- She was going out dancing
with some of her colleagues,
new workers. She was feeling
a little bit nervous.
So, she said she had two
Mike's Hard Lemonade at home.
And then when she got here,
was pretty aggressive
with her drinking.
- I mean, it gave us an idea
of how many drinks E.M. had,
and it also, it corroborated
a lot of what she told us.
The surveillance video
shows that the players
were dancing with E.M.,
you know, on a very crowded,
packed dance floor.
- There's this particularly
haunting footage
where she sort of ping-pongs
between the different men.
They're circling her
on the dance floor.
One pulls her ponytail,
another slaps her buttocks,
and another picks her
up. And you could see
they're all sort of sharing her
in that moment.
It's like, you know,
sharks gathering a seal
to kind of share
amongst themselves.
- The way in which
they circled E.M. at the bar
and circled her
on the dance floor,
and there was just something,
I'm going to say,
primal about that.
There was pack behaviour.
That's what I want to call it,
pack behaviour.
I mean, she was outnumbered.
- We basically got assigned
by our editor.
He was like,
"I want you to go to London,
talk to as many people
as you can.
I want you to recreate
what that weekend looked like."
We found another woman
that encountered that group
that night at the bar,
talking about her experience
from Jack's that night
and encountering this big group.
Them being pretty aggressive
in sort of like, you know,
trying to glom onto her,
or trying to, you know,
make advances toward her.
There was one particular player
that he kept kind of trying
to pass her off
to a bunch of different
teammates.
Like, it became clear
to her at some point
that he was not just interested
in having some sort of
interaction with her.
He clearly wanted her
to be interacting
with his teammates as well.
And when he asked her
to go home that night,
he asked her
to go home with them.
And so, that has always
struck me
because there are a lot
of similarities
between what she told us
and what E.M. recounts
from that night.
And so, for me,
that was very impactful.
- The defence was arguing
that E.M. had every opportunity
to leave Jack's Bar
with her friends,
and she made the choice to stay
and drink and party with them.
And I don't think
she denies that,
because E.M. never denied
in this case
that she willingly left
Jack's Bar
and went with Michael McLeod,
and that if she
wasn't so drunk,
she wouldn't have. But she did,
and she went and had consensual
sex with Michael McLeod.
And after that is when
she says everything changed.
- After they have sex,
she goes into the bathroom
to clean herself up.
And she says when she comes out
of the bathroom,
more men are in the room,
and she's shocked.
- You know, he secretly
sent a text message
to his teammates asking
who was up for a three-way.
- Then Carter Hart texts, like,
I think five minutes later,
"I'm in."
- His lawyer suggests
that wasn't the case.
That she actually said,
why don't you invite
all of your--
Why don't you invite
all of your friends back here
for a wild time?
So, you know, it's interesting
because one of the last bits
of evidence that we did see
in the case was an interview
that Michael McLeod did
with London Police
in late 2018.
In that interview,
when he's told
about what the allegation
is against him,
he never says E.M. asked me
to invite my whole team
back here.
And I would think that
if you're being called in
and told that you're being
accused of sexual as*ault,
if she had asked for that,
you would have said that
50 times, not just once.
When you guys
finish having sex,
what happens from there?
- So in 2018, he does not talk
about sending a three-way text.
That doesn't come up.
And then in 2022,
he added that...
E.M. wanted him
to send the text message.
That he sent it because
she asked him to.
So, 2022 was the first time
we'd heard that.
- What makes this case
interesting is, in 2022,
Hockey Canada reopened
its investigation
after the public learned
of this,
and after there was
public outrage.
The organization said that,
you know,
players who didn't participate
and cooperate
in the investigation could face
mandatory lifetime bans.
And so, at that time,
all these players agreed,
Okay, well, we'll cooperate.
And their statements that they
gave to Hockey Canada in 2022,
the Crown Attorney in this case
says that there was many,
many, many inconsistencies
in what they told Hockey Canada
in 2022,
compared to what they told
the London Police
four years earlier.
Alex Formenton, who's one
of the players who's charged,
in 2022, in his first interview,
he told a Hockey Canada
investigator
that he never saw Dillon Dub
slap E.M.
But then four days later,
he asked for another interview.
He admitted that he had not been
truthful in his first interview.
He said that Dillon Dub
and Cal Foote
had asked him
not to talk about
any of this
when he was questioned.
So what happened--
because in the pretrial hearings
in this case, a judge
who was overseeing that,
he decided that those statements
in 2022 were coerced.
That the players
weren't there voluntarily,
that they were only there
because they were worried
that they would be banned
for life
if they didn't cooperate.
And so, all of
those statements from 2022
are not admissible
in this trial.
So, E.M. is on the stand
and is cross-examined on
all of their--
all of her statements.
But if the players
take the stand,
they can't be cross-examined
on anything they said in 2022
to Hockey Canada
because all of those statements
have been tossed out.
What weighed
on my decision to form grounds
that an offence was committed
that night was,
were the inconsistencies
in the statements,
and that didn't come out
in trial
because the 2022 statements
were excluded.
And then you had E.M.'s
statements in 2018
and, you know, she had a written
statement in 2022
that was spoken about
in trial as well.
And you just didn't see
the same inconsistencies.
Like, none of them
were perfect, right?
Nobody tells the same story
the exact same way
over seven years.
But I had some real concerns
with what some of the players
were saying,
sort of to this person,
and what they were saying
to that person.
I think it would have been
important for...
the trier of fact to hear,
hear the different stories
and how the players'
versions of events
sort of evolved over the years.
I met Catherine Laroche
a couple years ago.
I'd seen her story reported
in a French newspaper in Quebec.
And, you know, it really made
an impression on me.
This woman who had said
she'd been sexually assaulted
by a prominent junior
hockey player
who went on to be a star
in the National Hockey League.
And, you know, then decided
to kind of take charge
of her own story
and figured out how to,
you know, start a program
educating young players
about what healthy
relationships look like.
I was r*ped
at the age of 23.
And like, there was so many
stories like of,
"Ah, the guys took GHB
because alcohol makes them
gain weight.
So, you took the wrong
water bottle.
You slept with that guy."
And that's when I was like,
"What? Who?"
I didn't even know who he was.
I think I said hi, but I, like,
I wasn't in flirt mode
or anything.
So, I called him, though.
Like, I wanted to know,
we had a sexual relation.
And he's like,
"Yeah, you liked it."
I was like, "Okay, but they said
that you found me unconscious."
He's like, "Yeah, at one point
you said you were gonna be sick,
so, like, I, I took off
and you went into the bathroom."
He's like, "Can you just
please not talk about that?
Because I'm about to sign
with the NHL
and it could mess up my career."
And at that point
where I had a low self-esteem
and a very doubtful mind,
I said, okay.
When I became a mom in 2018
and 2020,
that's when I decided
to go to the police.
And it took a year-and-a-half
after I went to the police,
before they told me,
"Okay, we're ready
to start questioning
the witness."
And when they told me
we're ready,
well, I wasn't anymore.
So, I decided, like,
instead of going me against him,
I wanted to educate
people like him
to prevent people like me
getting hurt.
That's my story.
I work with
15-25 right now,
and I'm so hopeful
because those guys,
first of all, they're tired
of wearing the label
of what comes with being
a hockey player.
And they are so open-minded.
Repressing, that's what humans
are used to do.
And to repress and put that
behind without really looking
to the real raw
and shadowy parts,
it will go again.
We have to face the real things.
We have to see them.
There's a journalist who used
to work with 60 Minutes.
He's passed away.
He covered a lot of like,
conflict zones and wars.
His name was Bob Simon.
And he was k*lled
in a car accident in New York.
And I always liked his line
about journalism, which was,
you know,
"If it's really important
for you to be popular,
then this is the wrong
career choice."
So, and that's, that's,
that's true.
You know, we do this
because it matters.
We do it because the reporting
is in the public interest.
And... and journalism is like
a foundation of our democracy,
right?
It's our job
as journalists to...
to watch the people
who are in power in government
and hold them accountable
for what they're doing.
One of the key pieces
of evidence that we heard
both pretty early
and pretty often
is this group text invitation
that Mike McLeod makes
to his teammates of,
"I've got a girl in the room
who wants to have a three-way.
Mikey."
- I think regardless
of whether or not
you think these guys
are innocent,
it's disgusting to read
these text messages.
It's really quite horrifying.
There's something about
the way in which they talk
about it so casually.
It seems like something
they're used to doing.
They're inviting one another.
- There was 19 players
in that group chat.
It did stand out to me that
not one person thought like,
hey, wait a second,
are you serious?
You know, not one person sort of
questioned the text message.
And it just, you know,
a three-way text goes out
and within the next hour,
two hours, you know,
there's ten guys
in the room with E.M.
- There are additional texts
from that night.
He texted Taylor Raddysh,
asking if he wanted a gummer.
And then ran into Boris Katchouk
in the hallway
and asked if he wanted to come
in the hotel room for a gummer.
- Which is slang for oral sex.
- Boris Katchouk came back
to the room,
and he's not been accused
of any wrongdoing.
He's obviously not been charged.
But why did you show up?
And he showed up with pizza.
And E.M. was naked in the bed.
And when Boris was asked,
"Did she say anything to you?"
He said, "Yeah, she asked
for a bite of my pizza."
And the Crown naturally said,
"Well, did you
give her any pizza?"
- He gave a really weird
answer, like,
"I don't remember what I said,
but she did not
have a bite of pizza."
I found that...
just in really poor taste.
No pun intended.
She was good enough
to dance with,
she's good enough to party with,
good enough to come back
to the room
to see what sort of three-way
might be happening,
but not good enough to give
a bite of your pizza to?
It was just a moment that
was especially dehumanizing,
is what comes to mind for me.
She said after
she had sex with Michael McLeod,
other men entered
the hotel room.
She testified three men
pulled their pants down
for oral sex, as others
in the room chanted, "Suck it."
And some allegedly spat on her.
Some slapped her buttocks.
Two of the players, she said,
had sex with her
in the bathroom.
She testified the men
in the room shouted and laughed.
"It was all just a joke
to them," she said.
E.M. said she cried at times,
but when she tried to leave,
people would guide her
away from the door.
- One of the things that
has been debated
or a point of contention is...
how she felt.
And in her words,
she describes feeling,
"Very fearful,
very nervous, very anxious."
- As E.M. testifies,
she says they wanted her
to get down on the floor
between them,
and she says the hotel floor
is dirty.
And that's when they decide
to put the sheet down.
So, they put a sheet down,
and they all surround her.
At that point, they asked
her to masturbate.
I think she complied.
And as she described,
they spat on her,
and they took turns hitting her.
Some of them made
comments about,
it's gross even to say,
but they were there
for a golf tournament, so,
there were golf ba*ls
and golf clubs around,
and they talk about
how many golf ba*ls
they could fit up her vag*na.
And they also see--
ask whether or not
she could take a full golf club.
- I think when you find yourself
in that situation,
you have to make
an assessment of,
do I go along with this,
or do I resist it?
And if I resist it,
how bad could this get?
- And I think something
that's really been interesting,
I think people forget
when you read about the case,
is these guys are enormous.
They're all at least
six feet tall,
or around there.
I mean, they're all 200 pounds.
And so, they're more threatening
than the average man.
- When you're party
to conversations
about people talking about
sticking a golf club inside you,
you'd have some concerns
about how bad
this could get
if things got agitated.
Savard prompted E.M.,
"One of your coping mechanisms
on this unusual night
may have been offering sex?"
E.M. replied, "I was not
acting like myself."
"You were acting like
a porn star?" Savard asked.
"Yes, I feel that
was the thing they wanted.
They were trying to recreate
a porn scene," E.M. replied.
- You know, when she agreed
that she'd taken on
the persona of a porn star,
that was jarring to hear.
You know, it really kind of,
I think,
started a lot of conversations
about what trauma response is
and how people respond
in cases where
they're being traumatized.
- She experienced this mind
separating from her body.
And we know that to be a trauma
response of dissociation.
And so, her testimony
was so meaningful
to so many people
because they recognized
what she was talking about.
Going back to, like,
the idea of trauma response,
you don't always remember things
sequentially.
And sometimes you...
can't recall a detail
of great import,
but then something
seemingly inconsequential
will be very vivid.
The detail that sticks out to me
is that she remembered one guy
sitting on the bed
eating chicken wings.
It struck me as
one of those details
that I wonder
if that has stuck with her?
- The sex as*ault trial
of five former
World Junior hockey players
continued
with the cross-examination
of the complainant.
- It's the fifth day
of cross-examination.
- E.M. still has many more
questions to answer
as the marathon
cross-examination continues.
- You know, I was talking
to a good friend of mine
who's a former sex crimes
prosecutor,
and she, like, was gobsmacked
when she heard that she was
on the stand for nine days.
She said she had never seen
or heard anything like that.
- Seven days
of cross-examination,
how can that not be
re-traumatizing?
- She had to sit through
five defence lawyers
cross-examining her
about what happened,
trying to prove
that she was wrong.
- Their goal is,
I would imagine,
is to discredit her
at every level,
to show what she's saying,
you can't believe.
- I'm not sure
any one of those accused
could sit up there for
seven days
and take that kind of hammering.
I had concerns
that we weren't going to get
through it, but then there
came a point where, you know,
she only got stronger,
every single day
after every break.
- And then she gets
cross-examined by Dan Brown,
who's very aggressive.
He's trying to end the day
with a flourish
where he's saying, like,
you know,
"This is all a result
of the shame and embarrassment
from the choices you made."
And he tries to end
the day and say, like,
"That's all for me,
Your Honour."
And she says at some point,
"No, I would like to finish."
And she has the last word.
And she basically, like,
I am not going to get
pushed around.
And I am here for a reason.
This is a chance to stick up
for myself in a way
that I didn't and I couldn't
at the time,
but you are going
to hear that now.
And I thought that was
a very powerful moment.
I think that there
were some r*pe myths
coming through in some
of the questioning of E.M.
And you know, we have case law
that says that r*pe myths
have no place in the courtroom
or the judicial system,
but we have yet to see that,
I would say. Yeah.
- So notably, they haven't asked
her about her sexual history,
though they did bring up
that she had
a boyfriend at the time.
That, you could say,
is not related to her history.
It's relevant to the case.
They ask her a lot about
how much she was drinking.
"Were you really that drunk
that you couldn't consent,
but also you must have been
too drunk to remember
exactly what happened?"
So, they toe
a lot of those lines.
But they ask her a lot about
the high heels she was wearing.
"If you were so drunk,
how could you walk
in such high heels?"
- I've heard the argument made
by men
who probably have not been
intoxicated in high heels,
most of them.
Yeah, you see her and McLeod
walk up the stairs
through a lobby
and they're gone.
You know, they're on camera
for maybe five or six seconds.
No, she doesn't stumble,
but it's not a video
that you can draw a ton
of conclusion from.
- Every 20-year-old woman,
I would imagine, on Earth, like,
is fairly adept at walking
in heels,
even after, like,
you know, a night of drinking.
Like, I think a lot
of college women
are pretty confident in that.
- So, a lot of the guys
that I talk to,
especially WHL,
you really have to move
far away from that.
All of them say that, yeah,
hockey, absolutely love it.
But the challenges
of moving away from home
and trying to be accepted
on a team.
You know, you're 16 years old,
you're barely shaving.
- Yeah. Mm-hmm.
- And your teammates are 20,
and they're like, they're men,
right?
- Yeah.
- And just trying
to be accepted, it's hard.
- Yeah.
- You know, it can be lonely.
A buddy of mine, Justin Davis,
he was drafted
Washington Capitals.
He heard this year,
that at a rookie party
in Ontario,
there was this game,
you guys heard of this game,
"the d*ck beer"?
Where you have to do push--
So, all the first-year players
had to do push-ups, naked,
over a cup of beer.
And their p*nis would go
into the beer
because they had the cup there,
right?
And the rookie who did
the fewest push-ups
had to drink everyone's beer.
This year, this season.
How can that be happening
in 2024
with all the stuff
we've read, right?
- Yeah. I don't know.
- My first, like,
when I went 16 years old,
in the Junior, like,
the veterans, I was a rookie.
So, there was, like,
a thing that we need to eat,
like, a cereal
in the a*s of someone.
And... yeah.
- Okay.
- For the rookie.
- One of my friend
also is in prison right now.
- Nicolas Daigle?
- Yes.
That's one of
my best friends.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
- Got the chance to see him.
Had a lot of emotion about it.
We all-- we all did.
I mean, it's...
- How does he feel?
- Feel terrible.
- Regretful?
- Absolutely.
Every day. But it's every--
Every day that we're--
we can't talk to him,
it's a learning experience
for him.
He wants to get out
and want to move on
and live his life the
full as he can.
But if you bring him back
in time, you know,
definitely not making
the same mistake again.
In Montreal,
meeting with Michel Brub.
Michel was the prosecutor
in a highly publicized case
involving two junior hockey
players
who were accused
of sexual as*ault
and who pleaded guilty.
I was thinking about
the first time I met you
was in court in Quebec.
I had just come to hear
some of the pretrial arguments
in the case with Nicolas Diagle
and Massimo Siciliano.
It's interesting,
some of the facts that came out
in your case versus
the case in London.
And there have been
even the other,
there's another case
in Quebec recently
with three hockey players.
Noah Corson was 18.
The other two pleaded guilty.
In that case,
Noah Corson's lawyer suggested
that he received sex education
in hockey locker-rooms.
Do you have any thoughts about
what it is about
the culture of hockey
that might lead
these young men
to make bad choices
and not be the best versions
of themselves sometimes?
- Well,
that's a very good question.
And the way I would answer
this question as a prosecutor
is we encourage victims
to come forward
and to speak up.
If we try these cases,
the culture might change.
- How much do your teams
talk to you
about issues like this,
like consent?
Does it ever come up?
Do they make you--
Do they make you watch a video?
- There's a video from consent.
- The tea?
- Every year, the tea.
The tea video.
If you're still
struggling with consent,
just imagine instead
of initiating sex,
you're making them a cup of tea.
You say, "Hey, would you like
a cup of tea?"
And if they say, "No thank you,"
then don't make them tea.
At all.
- When it's over,
some guys will talk around, hey,
how can she know
what the tea tastes
if she hasn't tasted it?
- Really.
- Well, there's--
there's guys walking around
about that. And it's not
taken seriously yet enough.
How can that be?
Think about all the stories.
Like, you've got not only
the one with Victoriaville,
we also have Noah Corson.
- Yeah.
- And then you have this case
in London.
Like, why do you think
these things
like this happen repeatedly?
- Uh, fame.
Uh, you have it too easy.
And most of the time,
it's easy to get out of it.
- People look the other way.
People make excuses.
Is that what you mean?
- Yep. Too easily.
- When you go into hockey,
right, like,
you're living a life.
You know what I'm saying?
That's why nobody
takes it seriously.
You don't take responsibilities
or-- on anything.
You don't think
as much as you should.
I think that's one big problem
that happens a lot.
- It's where there's fame
and money that ego gets up.
And when ego gets up,
you think you have power
and you think you can do
anything you want.
Mixed with group effect
because those guys are together.
So, I think people chase
all the time, adrenaline,
they chase power, they chase--
Because it helps them feel
something that's missing
inside of them.
E.M. also
testified she did not recall
participating in two videos
taken from McLeod's phone,
in which she appears to give
consent to unspecified acts.
- In 2018, Mr. McLeod
handed those videos
over to police,
and E.M. was asked to come back
into the station
and showed those videos,
and it was the first time
she'd seen them.
She has said that
she does not recall filming
any of those videos.
She remarked that, like,
she looks pretty different
to herself on those tapes.
That, like, she's speaking
kind of erratically
and pretty quickly.
Her eyes, she described
as having, like, "crazy eyes"
and just
feeling like
she looks like a mess.
- When have you ever been asked
to film on camera?
"Oh, yeah, this is good.
I'm okay with it.
Let's take a selfie
and I'll sign off
and say this was all okay."
Like, who's giving them
that advice?
Is it kind of known throughout--
amongst them?
"Oh, you should,
if you have kind of
an encounter that
goes out of control,
you should take a video
like this just in case."
It's a bit strange.
And it seems by the nature
of the videos that this
is something that
they're accustomed to doing.
- If you got consent,
do you need to make the video?
Which is after the fact
and not when you're supposed
to get a consent.
I didn't rely on them
when I was forming my grounds
to determine whether
an offence had been committed,
because what mattered
was her subjective state of mind
at the time of each act, right?
Was it voluntary? Was she giving
that consent at the time?
Um... Not after the fact.
It's interesting,
you know, you have so many
reporters in this courtroom
all listening to the same thing.
And nobody catches, I think,
what's a pretty
important detail.
In one of these consent videos,
like we already know
that E.M. says that
Michael McLeod,
throughout the course
of the early morning hours
of June 19th,
um...
was badgering her
to make a video.
But if you actually
pay attention
to what Michael McLeod says,
I haven't seen
anybody report this.
So, Michael McLeod actually
starts that video off by saying,
"Say it."
And then the E.M. says,
"Okay, it was all consensual.
Are you recording me?"
And he says, "Yes."
And she says, "Okay, good."
And then he says, "What else?"
And she says,
"You are so paranoid.
Holy! I enjoyed it, it was fine.
It was all consensual.
I'm so sober that's why
I can't do this right now."
But hearing his words,
it does make you...
it does seem to give more
credibility
to what she's saying, that,
you know,
that he was wanting her
to do this
throughout the course
of the night
and prompting her to do it.
But again, to me,
you have a courtroom
full of reporters,
and nobody heard this.
Nobody reported on it.
That's interesting.
It's been a crazy
couple days.
We go through one
mistrial in this case,
and then yesterday,
there's a little bit of momentum
in the court
because E.M. is finally done
testifying after nine days.
And we hear from
Tyler Steenbergen,
a member of Canada's 2018
World Junior team.
He's offering
testimony about what he saw
in the hotel room.
He saw Dillon Dub
slap E.M. He saw Cal Foote
do the splits over top of E.M.
And then he testifies
that a week later
after this incident,
when he learned Hockey Canada
was doing an investigation,
Dub and Foote
both called him and asked him
not to share
with investigators
what he'd seen.
And very dramatic testimony.
And then we came back from lunch
and the judge drops a bombshell.
She reads this note to the court
and the note says...
"...as if they are discussing
our appearance.
This is unprofessional
and unacceptable."
And so that sets off
a firestorm.
And immediately the defence,
you know,
you can see the idea
forming in their mind already
that they're going to be able
to get a mistrial out of this.
And so that's where we are now.
We've come back.
The Defence has said that
they think that there should be
a mistrial and that this case
should move forward
as a judge alone case,
meaning the jury gets dismissed
and the judge decides
the guilt or acquittal
of these defendants.
- Did the defence team
observe the jurors
in the same way that I
observed some of the jurors,
looking troubled?
In one instance,
I believe I saw a juror
physiologically triggered
by E.M.'s testimony.
Was that an opportunity
to change course?
Did they think that maybe
they had fallen out of favour
with the jurors?
- There are some people
who are watching this
who believe there's a bias that
the judge has shown
towards, in favour
of the defence.
I don't know how
that would affect her judgment
in terms of rendering a decision
based on the law,
but, you know, it's--
I really want to see
how this unfolds.
And I know we live in a world
of hot takes,
where, what do you think
about that?
My job is to report on facts
that I see,
and so,
the facts are unbelievable.
- One sex as*ault trial,
two juries discharged.
This morning,
Justice Maria Carroccia
decided that this trial
will proceed
in front of her alone,
out of concern about
jury prejudice.
Yesterday, one of
the players who testified,
Brett Howden, he's not been
charged with anything
or accused of any wrongdoing,
he was being asked
a whole bunch of questions
about what happened
in June 2018,
you know, in this hotel.
And so many times he would say,
"I don't remember."
"I don't know,
I don't remember."
So the Crown today argued
that Brett Howden
was not being truthful,
that he was feigning
this memory loss,
and that it was selective.
He was remembering things that,
you know, help these players
who are defendants,
the Crown called them his
"friends and former teammates",
but he was forgetting things,
key details
that he'd talked about
previously.
So, now we're having all
of this legal argument
over whether or not
his past statements
can be introduced and he can be
cross-examined on them.
One of the text messages
in here,
there was another player
on the team
that's also not charged,
named Taylor Raddysh.
At one point, Brett Howden
texts Taylor Raddysh,
"Dude, I'm so happy I left
when all the sh*t went down.
Haha."
- I think the Crowns kind of
went into trial
with one hand tied
behind their backs.
And then once that text
was excluded
by Justice Carroccia,
I think from then on,
they had both hands
tied behind their backs.
- When we think about
what the actions
of these other players
were in that
room, even the players
that weren't charged,
did they do the right thing?
That's going to be
for the public to decide.
They don't face any
criminal charges, but you know,
I can tell you, as a dad,
I would hope that my sons
would act very differently
and would leave that room
immediately
and would tell someone.
Would tell somebody
that, hey,
there's something going--
An assistant coach,
the front desk, anonymously,
"There's something going on
in that room,
and it's not right."
- In London, the sex as*ault
trial of five former
World Junior hockey players
continued again today,
with Carter Hart taking
to the witness box.
He is the first of the accused
to testify on his own behalf.
Carter Hart
has testified
if he had seen anything
disrespectful
happening in that hotel room,
he would have said something
or left.
- Carter Hart testified,
and I've heard people in hockey
suggest that he needed
to tell his story that way
to be assured of a path
back to the NHL.
- She was chirping them.
She was saying,
"Who's going to come
and f*ck me?" Essentially,
was what they testified to.
I mean, it's interesting
because...
it's he said, she said.
It's their word against hers,
essentially, right? She says,
"No, that's not something
I would have said."
And they say,
"You did say that."
She remembers
sort of getting lost
when she had to leave.
She realized that she left
some jewellery in the room.
She goes back and knocks
on the door
and remembered how sort of
annoyed that they were,
Formenton and McLeod,
that she had come back.
They let her look for her ring.
She didn't find it.
And then she ended up leaving,
and then she's on
surveillance video
leaving and getting
into her Uber.
Her mom found her
in the bathtub, not herself.
Her mom was kind of able
to get it out of her
that something happened.
So, her mom initially
called London Police,
just seeking advice.
And then the next day,
once Michael McLeod, I guess,
had been notified that
a complaint had been made,
he looked her up on Instagram
and reached out to her
and they had
a brief text conversation.
"I need
to talk rn," he wrote.
"You said you were having fun?"
He texted her.
"I was really drunk,
didn't feel good about it
at all after." She wrote.
"I was ok going home with you,
it was everyone else afterwards
that I wasn't expecting.
I just felt like I was being
made fun of
and taken advantage of."
McLeod repeatedly pressed her
to go to police
to end the investigation.
"What can you do
to make this go away?"
- I think he was just trying
to get her to withdraw
any complaint
that might be made.
- We've heard evidence
from four players so far,
and to a degree,
all four of them
have had real memory issues
when the players
were all texting each other,
you know, trying to decide
how they would respond to
a Hockey Canada investigation.
The group chat
was created
just from the players
in the room.
That came from Dillon Dub.
I think at the time
they genuinely believed
that it was just going
to be a Hockey Canada
conduct investigation.
You know, as an investigator,
there's kind of like
an ah-ha moment, right?
Because that's what we do
as police officers.
We investigate because
we want to put
the puzzle pieces together.
So, I think that those
text messages
were a lot of the missing
puzzle pieces.
You know, they were there
since 2018,
and they didn't come out
until 2022
when we started
asking questions.
It gave a lot of context
to what happened that night,
what happened
the days following.
The way I read it
and the opinion that I formed,
was that they were trying
to come up with a story.
They were trying to get
on the same page.
- Closing statements
in the sexual as*ault trial
of former World Junior hockey
players began today.
The defence teams
attacked E.M.,
the Crown's chief witness,
providing Justice
Maria Carroccia
with a 30-page document
known as an aide memoir,
referencing what it argued
were issues
with her credibility
and reliability.
I think that the defence
probably feels pretty good
about where they're at.
The burden of proof
on the prosecutors
is beyond a reasonable doubt.
Did the prosecution
make their case? I don't know.
This is her word against
the word of these five men.
It's interesting, like,
if this was a jury trial still,
we'd probably be waiting
for four or five days, you know,
sitting in the courthouse,
just waiting for a verdict.
And then the jury would come out
and say guilty or not guilty
for each of the players,
and we'd never understand
why they reached that decision,
because jurors are not allowed
to talk about their verdicts.
But because of how crazy
this trial has been
because it's now a trial
by a judge alone,
it's different.
The judge will reserve
her decision,
and then we'll all be,
you know,
sent a notice to come back
on a particular day
for the reading of the verdict.
How do we change
the culture
when forever,
it's been one
where you have to fit in?
- Team spirit
is really important,
how the coaches are, how the...
the player or the veterans are.
Just about being to accept
everyone, whatever they are.
If you don't want to drink,
don't drink.
If you're g*y, you're g*y.
There's no worry about it.
- If you think that people
like Kyle Beach
don't deserve a voice,
then we're not on the same page.
- A thousand percent.
- You know, if you think
that Hockey Canada should have
this fund
to pay off
sexual as*ault allegations
and keep that secret
from the Canadian public...
- Yep.
- ...we're not on the same page.
- Yep. I totally agree.
My dad always says,
"If someone's, like,
disagreeing with you, you're
doing something right", right?
Because, you know, people
don't want change.
And especially in hockey,
change is hard because,
again, we're so protective
over the game, right?
- What would your message be
to young players coming up
when it comes to how
to treat younger teammates?
How to deal with girls?
Like, girls, obviously
like being around you guys
because of the celebrity
you have,
because you play
junior hockey.
- But it's okay to have fun,
but there's also a limit
that, yes,
you want a career,
you want to be--
you got to grow as a man,
not just the kid growing up.
It's, as soon as you get
in the league, at 16, at 17,
whether at 18,
you're in big shoes to fill.
I'm curious,
one of the things that, again,
a lot of these dozens of players
have told me
when I've interviewed them is,
when I say,
"Well, why don't you speak up
and why don't you say something?
When you, you know,
when there's like,
hazing or issues like this,
why not say something?"
And almost every player is like,
"We can't do that.
If you speak up, you're done."
- I think it's hard
because we're a big family,
so we're all like brothers.
But if you quit that mentality
to say something, it's hard.
- Well, what if, you know,
the rest don't see it
the way you see it?
Then you're by yourself
a little bit.
Even though you should be
the one talking,
it's the right thing to do,
then you get the fear
of rejection, right?
- What's happened to the image
of hockey
over the last couple of years?
I think of, yeah, like,
what's happened to it
across our country?
- It changed.
Because some people
did some bad thing,
like, they think everybody's
like that, but...
it's not the true.
Like, there are some good guys
in hockey, like,
a lot of good guys.
- When you're saying,
"That's how people see us",
how do you know that?
Do people actually say this
to you in person?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, like, I've heard that.
- Honestly?
- Yeah, but it's well known
that everybody thinks,
like, pretty much always
bad about hockey player.
And even in life, like,
you're at the bar
and everything, like,
a girl say,
"Oh, you're a f*cking hockey
player", and like...
- They're all the same.
- Yeah.
- That's the same thing
every time.
Hockey players, all the same.
But no, we're all humans.
At the end of the day, it's...
it could happen to anyone.
But we're hockey players,
and it's all in the media
most of the time, so...
All right, gentlemen.
Good morning.
Great workout at the gym.
What we're going to work
on today is some Edgeboss.
Lucas is here.
Welcome back, Lucas.
We're going to work on
some hands,
some quick feet. Let's go.
My name is Jim Thomson.
I'm the owner
of the Aurora Tiger Junior A
Hockey Team of the OJHL.
My happy place is hockey.
It's my life. I've done it
since I was six years old.
Getting to work with these
young men
and being in the gym
every day with them,
being on the ice every day
with them,
I love it.
I'll love it till--
I'll do this until
I can't do it anymore.
We have an obligation
to these young athletes
to teach them the right culture.
Give them a great foundation
to get on with
a healthy lifestyle.
And that's far above winning.
And what I want to happen here
is what my coaches,
what my general manager,
what my assistant GM,
my trainers, everybody
has to be part of.
And if they don't,
they can't work here.
And that's just the bottom line
because you entrust
your son to be here.
My job as the owner
is to make sure that he's taken
care of like my own kids.
Today, this dressing room
is open conversation in Aurora.
My leadership group here,
there's nothing hidden.
If there's something going on,
I want to know about it,
or the coaches or the GM
have to know about it.
Some players
thought they could beat it.
No matter how good they were,
I got them out because they're
not going to break my culture.
What I want to see more of,
"That's wrong.
You guys stop it."
That's, instead of just turning
a blind eye to say,
I'm out of here,
that's what I want to see.
I want to see the leadership's
group say, you know,
"What the hell are you doing?
Stop that nonsense."
That's where we gotta get to.
Less than one percent
of the players make the NHL.
So the 99% that don't,
what kind of journey
and what kind of experience
do they have?
What are they getting out of it?
You know,
I have that tattoo there,
"In a world where you can be
anything, be kind."
You know, that's it.
We're in a world
where you can be anything,
be kind.
Kindness matters, right?
I wonder, how would that
incident in London
have been different
if one of those guys
walking into that room
and taking in that scene
where there's ten guys
and one woman,
what would have happened
if one of those guys had said,
"This doesn't feel right?"
"Let's get her a taxi."
How would the last seven years
have been different for them?
For E.M.?
I wonder about that.
Well, here we go.
- It does not matter
what happens
in that courtroom today.
It's really about the community
that's come together
and showing women
that they are believed
and that there's community
behind them.
And I'm hopeful that
that's the messaging
that sticks from all of this.
- What do we want?
- Justice!
- When do we want it?
- Now!
- I'm a survivor as well.
And the whole reason I came
was to show her that it matters.
And she can face five
defence attorneys.
We can face one.
What do we want?
Justice!
- When do we want it?
- Now!
- What do we want?
- Justice!
- When do we want it?
- Now!
- What do we want?
- Justice!
- This trial has been a real
wake-up call
for hockey culture in Canada,
and it really sends a message
to the public
and to the community
of London
that this means a lot to us.
- It's definitely
a pivotal moment,
regardless of the outcome.
We're not going to be quiet
about it, that's for sure.
- Five former World Junior
hockey players
at the centre of a high-profile
sexual as*ault trial
are now free and clear,
all of them found not guilty.
- The judge saying she found
the complainant's allegations
against the men
lacked credibility.
This case started out,
it certainly
was a roller coaster
with a mistrial,
with the jury dismissed,
you know, moving ahead
as a judge alone.
The lawyers I talked to
who are experts
say they've never seen anything
like this before,
but here we are.
And so, we trust
the judge's decision,
and the players are not guilty.
- They're all not guilty.
She can't find that consent
was vitiated
on any of the counts,
and she didn't find E.M.
reliable or credible.
It's not an easy day.
It's a pretty disappointing day,
but also not surprising.
Yeah.
I, uh... sorry.
Um...
I didn't think
I was going to cry.
Um...
I wanted to get her
the right answer
because I didn't think
she got it in 2018.
So, that was always, um...
That was my goal throughout
the whole investigation.
Um...
And then my job kind of,
I understood that my job
came to an end
once I kind of handed it over
to the Crowns.
It took an emotional toll,
just watching everything
she had to go through.
It took a lot out of me,
my family.
But I wouldn't have
done it differently.
And it was honestly an honour
to work for her on this case.
- Whenever I've given advice
to complainants,
I always tell them,
there's no guarantees
about the outcome,
and you have to be prepared
for that.
Her purpose, which was always
at the forefront of her mind,
was to stand up for herself
and for others who
have had similar experiences.
She felt there needed
to be accountability,
but her choice to testify
came at a great personal cost.
When a person summons
the courage
to disclose their story,
the worst possible outcome
is to feel disbelieved.
- Instead of pursuing
restorative justice,
the Crown forced a distressing
and unnecessary trial
to the detriment
of Mr. Hart, his co-defendants,
the complainant,
and the Canadian public.
- Rick, were you in fact
in the courtroom today?
Yeah,
I was sitting there.
Like, the judge gave
a bit of a spoiler
by saying right off the bat
that she didn't find E.M.,
the complainant's, testimony,
to be credible or reliable.
And as soon as she said that,
you could hear audible gasps
from the section
of the public gallery
where the players' families
were.
Just because the judge
finds that something criminal
did not happen in that room,
it does not mean that players
didn't say and do things
that were depraved.
- Acquittals are not the same
as innocence,
and I don't think acquittals
will necessarily
lead to absolution.
- People are saying,
"No, I believe her."
You know, I've seen
TikTok videos even
where people are like,
"No, I lived in a hockey town,
and I believe her.
That's exactly what
the culture was like."
- I hope that people speak up
and say, this is too much.
We shouldn't have to be
so afraid of the system
to seek justice.
- By coming forward,
you're protecting others.
I always suggest and emphasize
the power...
...of that knock
of the policeman
on the perpetrator's door.
That's a warning shot that may
really change their ways.
It's going to make them
think twice.
It's going to really, you know,
change the game
for that individual.
- I guess in my line of work,
I generally find that, um...
courage is contagious
and that it will be impossible
for her
to understand
the impact that she will make
on others who are considering
to come forward.
- We are so proud and happy
that you were able
to put on a face
and go and do it.
And like, it means the world
to people that
you don't even know
or will never meet.
So, thank you so much.
- You have changed us.
We believe you.
And we are with you.
- Honestly, I couldn't speak up
and thank you
for being so brave
and speaking up.
And I wish you healing
along the way.
- Keep aligning in your truth
and keep thinking that your win
is yours and nobody else's.
- And I think what you're doing
needs to be done,
and I think this is the start
of some real change.
We will not
be victimized!
- I want you to...
pass the baton now to us,
and let us...
let us continue this fight.
And just know that nothing...
nothing that you did
will be done in vain.
And I think that you...
you deserve peace now,
because you did your job
and you did it really well.
- I think you're a hero.
There are so few people
that would knowingly take on
what you agreed to do
just because...
you thought it was
the right thing to do.
- E.M., you changed lives.
I... I really think that.
I think you changed
people's lives
in the course
of those nine days.
And, uh...
I hope you've seen
the video of all the protesters,
and I hope you have received
all the messages of support...
from across the country
and other parts of the world.
People won't forget
what you did.
Thank you.
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Code of Misconduct (2026)
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