Witnesses Scott Smith and Brian Cairo appear at the standing committee on Canadian Heritage in Ottawa on July 27.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
When Hockey Canada officials last showed up to take questions from MPs, they came off like typical sports bureaucrats. Sure of themselves, shaky on the facts and totally oblivious to the fact that everyone was enraged at them.
The usual ‘Yeah, we’ll try to get back to you’ approach went over about as well as pulling a gun in the committee room.
On Wednesday, the heads of the five hockey families returned noticeably chastened. This time they had numbers to hand. In the most non-specific terms possible, they embraced the idea that something has gone badly wrong in their operation. Defining that thing in plain English continued to be a problem, but everyone agreed it was definitely something.
What had changed most was job descriptions. These sports wonks had read Twitter and now understood their new function – as zookeepers.
“We’ll dramatically expand the number of players who are exposed to enhanced education with respect to off-ice issues,” said Hockey Canada chief executive officer Scott Smith. “These players will carry that training back to their leagues, provincial and minor hockey associations.”
Smith said that in his opening statement, back when he was still young and full of hope that he might keep his job. Three hours in, after MPs from every party had called for his head and tried to hand him a saw, he was less co-operative.
Someone tried to nail him down on whether or not the problems at Hockey Canada, and in hockey generally, are “systemic.” Smith ducked and weaved. But if you were listening, you’d have gotten his answer at the outset.
If you need to pull the big wolves out of the wild and domesticate them in the hopes they will go back and convince all the lesser wolves to stop being so wolf-like, that’s a system-wide issue. If implementing basic human decency requires government intervention and a 19-page “Action Plan,” the system is fried.
“Players, no matter their skill, must know they cannot act with impunity,” said another game warden, CHL president Dan MacKenzie.
What an amazing sentence. It suggests this is a new idea.
That everyone’s always known that Roger, who’s stuck on the fourth line, can’t go around beating up women and expect the lawyers and insurance guys to make that problem disappear before the NHL draft. But as of right now that same rule applies to Jimmy, who’s leading the team in power-play goals and getting called up to Team Canada. This is your first and only warning, Jimmy. There’s a new bunch of old sheriffs in town.
The text of Wednesday’s hearings was fact-gathering about a single alleged assault and its aftermath. How much money was in Hockey Canada’s sex-abuse piggy bank? Who got it and when? How was it dispersed?
Smith was pressed repeatedly about business basics like keeping minutes of in-camera board meetings and doing due diligence around lawsuits. He said a lot of words that did not amount to answers. When in doubt, Smith blamed the lawyers.
“You need better lawyers,” said MP Anthony Housefather.
That was as close as Housefather, Smith’s most effective antagonist, got to a kill quote.
MP Kevin Waugh also connected with a jab: “When I look to the seven of you, and three on Zoom, that’s not the face of hockey today. That front row tells me everything.”
Occasional zingers aside, there was no great revelation or shocking stumble that will redefine this scandal. For that, you needed to pay attention to the subtext.
What no one has bothered to do during all of this is rebut the idea that young men who are good at hockey are also inherently perverse. Not some of them, but all of them. That they do what they like to whomever is unlucky enough to cross their path in the wrong hotel room late at night.
You’d think Hockey Canada would have some interest in mounting a character defence of the typical hockey player. Until very recently, when we thought of ‘good Canadians,’ we pictured nurses and firemen and a guy behind the bench coaching kids, who will all grow up to be good guys and hockey dads. Hockey Canada made a lot of money marketing this Tim Hortons utopia.
But having been caught bending the rules to protect that brand, Canada’s hockey establishment is now pressing the self-destruct button. In order to save itself, it has to destroy hockey.
Pull back from the talking points and the gotcha questions. What message are the people who run hockey in Canada trying to send? It’s twofold – hockey does not have a systematic problem (ergo, we are not the problem); the players must be Clockwork Orange’d until they are functioning citizens again.
It’s the players who’ve lost their way. Hockey Canada is the good guy. It’s trying to help the victims and make them sign NDAs, but only if they want to.
Underneath the bureaucratese, you can faintly hear the real explanation: ‘We tried, but what are you going to do with these brutes? Every once in a while, they’re going to get loose, and then it’s our job to get them back in a box before they panic the locals.’
If you didn’t believe hockey had a culture problem before Wednesday, you should now. For three hours, we were shown why players raised under Hockey Canada’s wing think they are above the normal codes of conduct that apply to the rest of us. Because the people in charge think the same thing.
If you’re caught, deny. If you’re really caught, find someone else to blame. And if there’s no one left to blame, blame the game and everyone in it. They are corrupted, not you. They require radical intervention and re-education. Since you were the one to see the taint on them, the duty falls to you to fix things. (Smith had the cheek to say his future bonuses – bonuses! – should be tied to this clean-up effort.)
As business cons go, it’s the sort that could only work on the very gullible or the very forgiving. Something tells me that when it comes to the people who run hockey, few Canadians are inclined to be either.
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NEW YORK – Toronto Blue Jays reliever Chad Green and Canadian slugger Tyler O’Neill of the Boston Red Sox were named finalists for the Major League Baseball Players’ Association’s American League comeback player award on Monday.
Chicago White Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet was the other nominee.
New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani and Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. were named player of the year finalists.
The award winners, selected via player voting, will be named Saturday before Game 2 of the World Series.
Green, who missed most of the 2022 and ’23 seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery, was a high-leverage option for the Blue Jays this past season and filled in at closer over the second half of the campaign.
The right-hander converted his first 16 save opportunities and finished the year with a 4-6 record, 17 saves and a 3.21 earned-run average over 53 appearances.
O’Neill, a native of Burnaby, B.C., also endured back-to-back injury-plagued seasons in ’22 and ’23.
After being traded to the Red Sox in the off-season, O’Neill set an MLB record by hitting a homer in his fifth straight Opening Day. He finished with 31 homers on the year and had an OPS of .847.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
NEW YORK – Florida Panthers centre Sam Reinhart was named NHL first star of the week on Monday after leading all players with nine points over four games last week.
Reinhart had four goals, five assists and a plus-seven rating to help the Stanley Cup champions post a 3-0-1 record on the week and move into first place in the Atlantic Division.
New York Rangers left-winger Artemi Panarin took the second star and Minnesota Wild goaltenderFilip Gustavsson was the third star.
Panarin had eight points (4-4) over three games.
Gustavsson became the 15th goalie in NHL history to score a goal and had a 1.00 goals-against average and .962 save percentage over a pair of victories.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
CLEVELAND (AP) — Deshaun Watson won’t finish the season as Cleveland’s starting quarterback for the second straight year.
He’s injured again, and the Browns have new problems.
Watson ruptured his right Achilles tendon in the first half of Sunday’s loss to Cincinnati, collapsing as he began to run and leading some Browns fans to cheer while the divisive QB laid on the ground writhing in pain.
The team feared Watson’s year was over and tests done Monday confirmed the rupture. The Browns said Watson will have surgery and miss the rest of the season but “a full recovery is expected.”
It’s the second significant injury in two seasons for Watson, who broke the glenoid (socket) bone in his throwing shoulder last year after just six starts.
The 29-year-old went down Sunday without being touched on a draw play late in the first half. His right leg buckled and Watson crumpled to the turf. TV replays showed his calf rippling, consistent with an Achilles injury.
He immediately put his hands on his helmet, clearly aware of the severity of an injury similar to the one Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers sustained last year.
As he was being assisted by the team’s medical staff and backup Dorian Thompson-Robinson grabbed a ball to begin warming up, there was some derisive cheers and boos from the stands in Huntington Bank Field.
Cleveland fans have been split over Watson, who has been accused of being sexually inappropriate with women.
The reaction didn’t sit well with several Watson’s teammates, including star end Myles Garrett, the NFL’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, who was appalled by the fans’ behavior.
“We should be ashamed of ourselves as Browns and as fans to boo anyone and their downfall. To be season-altering, career-altering injury,” Garrett said. “Man’s not perfect. He doesn’t need to be. None of us are expected to be perfect. Can’t judge him for what he does off the field or on the field because I can’t throw stones for my glass house.
“Ultimately everyone’s human and they’re disappointed just like we are, but we have to be better than that as people. There’s levels to this. At the end of the day, it’s just a game and you don’t boo anybody being injured and you don’t celebrate anyone’s downfall.”
Backup quarterback Jameis Winston also admonished the uncomfortable celebration.
“I am very upset with the reaction to a man that has had the world against him for the past four years, and he put his body and life on the line for this city every single day,” he said. “The way I was raised, I will never pull on a man when he’s down, but I will be the person to lift him up.
“I know you love this game. When I first got here, I knew these were some amazing fans, but Deshaun was treated badly and now he has to overcome another obstacle. So I’m going to support him, I’m going to lift him up and I’m going to be there for him.”
The injury is yet another twist in Watson’s tumultuous time with the Browns.
Cleveland traded three first-round draft picks and five overall to Houston in 2022 to get him, with owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam approving the team giving Watson a fully guaranteed, five-year $230 million contract.
With a solid roster, the Browns were desperate to find a QB who could help them compete against the top AFC teams.
The Browns had moved on from Baker Mayfield despite drafting him No. 1 overall in 2018 and making the playoffs two seasons later.
But Watson has not played up to expectations — fans have been pushing for him to be benched this season — and Cleveland’s move to get him has been labeled an abject failure with the team still on the hook to pay him $46 million in each of the next two seasons.
Watson’s arrival in Cleveland also came amid accusations by more than two dozen women of sexual assault and harassment during massage therapy sessions while he played for the Texans. Two grand juries declined to indict him and he has settled civil lawsuits in all but one of the cases.
Watson was suspended by the NFL for his first 11 games and fined $5 million for violating the league’s personal conduct policy before he took his first snap with the Browns. The long layoff — he sat out the 2021 season in a contract dispute — led to struggles once he got on the field, and Watson made just six starts last season before hurting his shoulder.
Cleveland signed veteran Joe Flacco, who went 4-1 as a starter and led the Browns to the playoffs.
Before Watson got hurt this year, he didn’t play much better. He was one of the league’s lowest-rated passers for a Cleveland team that hasn’t scored 20 points in a game and is back in search of a franchise QB.
