During a news conference at an event for the NHL’s All-Star Weekend in Toronto, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman confirmed that the four NHL players charged with sexual assault are still being paid by their teams.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
In his first public comments since four National Hockey League players were charged with sexual assault, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said it’s not necessary to suspend the men, because they are already on leaves from their teams and all of their contracts expire at the end of the season.
During a Friday news conference at an event for the NHL’s All-Star Weekend in Toronto, Mr. Bettman confirmed that the four players are still being paid by their teams.
“It becomes irrelevant in terms of the timing,” he said when asked about possible suspensions. “They’re all away from their teams … They’ve been paid the vast bulk of their salary for the year anyway.” He added that terminating a contract is not straightforward, and that a team would need to “prove certain things” if it were to take that step.
Because of that and the impending expiries of their contracts, he said he is comfortable with not taking further measures.
All but Mr. Formenton – who now plays professionally in Switzerland, but previously played for the Ottawa Senators – were playing in the NHL until they took leaves of absence from their teams last week in advance of the chargesbeing laid. Mr. Formenton has also taken a leave from his Swiss team.
The attack allegedly took place after a Hockey Canada fundraising gala in June, 2018. At the time, the five had all been drafted by NHL teams, but had yet to start their careers in the league.
The NHL conducted its own investigation into the alleged assault. Mr. Bettman confirmed Friday that this probe has been finished for several months.
“We were working with the NHL Players’ Association to analyze the information we had, create a process to move forward, and then determine what was an appropriate response when the news of the impending charges broke last week,” Mr. Bettman said.
He would not comment on what the investigation had found, but he said the allegations are “abhorrent, reprehensible, horrific and unacceptable.”
“At this stage, the most responsible and prudent thing for us to do is await the conclusion of the judicial proceedings,” he said.
The commissioner would not commit to releasing the findings of the NHL’s investigation once the court process has finished.
Friday’s news conference was the first time the commissioner had revealed substantive details of the NHL’s internal investigation since the league launched it a year-and-a-half ago. Mr. Bettman confirmed a report in The Globe and Mail that the league had hired Camille Olson to run the probe. Ms. Olson is a prominent American labour and employment lawyer, who in 2021 was recognized by the National Law Journal as one of the United States’ “trailblazers” in crisis management. Mr. Bettman said her investigation took 12 months to complete.
Ms. Olson had conducted other investigations for the league in the past, Mr. Bettman said. He added that all 22 members of the 2018 junior team were interviewed for the investigation, as well as other people “who were willing to participate.”
The complainant in the sexual-assault case, a woman identified in court records as E.M., was contacted but declined to be interviewed, Mr. Bettman said.
The commissioner said the investigation was complicated in part because two other probes – one from the London police and one from Hockey Canada, conducted by Danielle Robitaille of Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP – were proceeding at the same time.
The events at the centre of all three investigations began on June 18, 2018, the night of a Hockey Canada fundraising gala in London, Ont., in which members of the national junior team were honoured for their gold-medal win at the world championships several months earlier.
E.M. told police that she met some of the players at a bar that night after the event. She alleges that she eventually left with one of the men and had consensual sex with him in his hotel room, but that without her knowledge he invited some of his teammates into the room. She alleges that over the course of the next several hours she was sexually assaulted and humiliated.
She reported the incident to police immediately, but an initial investigation was closed without charges in February, 2019. The incident didn’t become public knowledge for another three years.
In April, 2022,E.M. filed a $3.55-million lawsuit against Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League and eight players that were not identified by name in her claim. A month later, TSN reported that Hockey Canada had settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount.
The NHL’s investigation probed whether any of the players present that night were in violation of the league’s code of conduct, a much lower threshold of wrongdoing than a criminal charge. At Friday’s news conference, Mr. Bettman declined to say whether the investigation had made any findings against any players not charged by police.
When asked whether such findings could be released, he said, “We don’t know exactly what the judicial process is going to be. As I indicated in my remarks, we interviewed all of the players from that team.”
Deputy NHL commissioner Bill Daly, who was also at the news conference, said the teams were not updated about the status of the investigation or any of the information that Ms. Olson learned during the course of her interviews.
“So they were flying in the dark for the entire part of that process. The only things they may have known is what the players may have told them,” Mr. Daly said.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
