The southwestern Ontario city of London will be under a spotlight Monday as a high-profile, multi-year probe into allegations of sexual assault involving players from Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team makes its way to court.
Five players — Dillon Dube, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart and Michael McLeod — were charged late last month with sexual assault in an incident that allegedly took place in the city in June 2018. A court document shows McLeod is facing an additional charge of sexual assault for “being a party to the offence.”
Lawyers for the players have said their clients will defend themselves against the allegations, and all five are expected to plead not guilty. None of the allegations have been tested in court.
The case is set to make its first appearance in a London court Monday morning, just hours before local police are scheduled to give an update on their investigation, which was initially closed without charges months after the incident but reopened years later in 2022.
The attention given to court cases such as this one can stir important conversations on consent and how it is or isn’t addressed within sports culture, said Katreena Scott, the academic director of Western University’s Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children.
This case in particular comes as sports organizations have faced scrutiny over their handling of sexual assault allegations, she said.
“We have been having a conversation that hasn’t gone far enough yet around how major sports organizations respond to …sexual assault, how they respond to individual incidents and accountability for that,” she said.
“And so it’s not only how does sport, how do major sport organizations respond to (or) fail to respond to incidents of sexual assault, but also what are they doing in a preventative way, in an education way, and in a culture change way to address the problem?”
Michael Kehler, a research professor of masculinities studies at the University of Calgary, said cases such as this one are part of a “long narrative” around sport culture and masculinity. Traditionally, he said, men and boys in those spaces have faced little scrutiny over their conduct.
“That’s kind of the context and I think that what we’re witnessing here is something that I think, both in our research around masculinities and sport culture, we’ve known for quite some time,” he said.
Four of the accused play in the NHL: Dube for the Calgary Flames, Hart for the Philadelphia Flyers, McLeod and Foote for the New Jersey Devils. Formenton previously played for the Ottawa Senators before joining a team in Switzerland. All have been allowed to go on indefinite leave from their professional clubs.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman addressed the criminal charges Friday at a news conference ahead of the league’s all-star festivities in Toronto.
The NHL launched its own investigation after hearing of the allegations in May 2022 and was in the process of determining how to analyze and act on its findings when news of the impending charges broke last month, he said.
“All of the NHL players who appear to be subject of indictment are no longer with their teams, so at this stage, the most responsible and prudent thing for us to do is await the conclusion of the judicial proceedings, at which point we will respond as appropriate,” he said.
Hockey Canada also conducted an investigation parallel to the police and NHL probes. The organization has not issued an official statement on the charges.
A police application for a search warrant filed in 2022 said there were grounds to believe a woman was sexually assaulted by five players on the junior team.
The charges are connected to an alleged group sexual assault of a woman identified only as E.M. in a London hotel room, the document shows. The incident allegedly occurred following a Hockey Canada ceremony celebrating the players’ victory at that year’s world junior tournament.
In the application, a lead investigator lays out E.M’s and multiple players’ accounts of that night. The document is heavily redacted, meaning many details cannot be seen, particularly regarding players’ statements to police. The players’ names are also redacted.
E.M. told investigators she went out to a bar to meet some friends on the night of June 18, 2018. She ended up meeting several players on the dance floor and spent most of the evening with them, she told police. They kept buying drinks, and she had eight shots and a vodka soda on top of two coolers she’d had at home, the document said.
In the early hours of the morning, she left the bar with one of the players in a taxi. E.M. told police she went with him willingly but didn’t think she would have done so if she hadn’t been so drunk.
They went together to a hotel room and engaged in consensual sexual acts, the document said. E.M. told police that everything that happened afterward was not consensual.
She said the player was on his phone and appeared to be texting. Several of his friends then came into the room — she recalled about seven or eight at some point, the document said. She recognized some from the bar. The player she had come to the hotel with was absent for a period when he went to get food, the document said.
Most of the alleged sexual acts are redacted from the search warrant application. She tried to leave on a few occasions, and while no one physically stopped her from doing so, they told her to stay and walked her back, E.M. told police.
E.M. told investigators she couldn’t remember exactly how the night ended but she was left alone with the player she had gone to the hotel with and his roommate. More redacted acts occurred, the document said. The player suggested she should leave because he had golf in the morning, the document said.
Two brief videos of E.M. were taken, and she believed they were shot at the end of the night, the document said. In one, it reads, a male voice asks her if she’s “OK with this,” and she agrees. In the second, the same male voice tells her to “say it,” and she replies, “OK, it was all consensual.”
She told police that even though she said she was fine, she felt she had no choice because she was stuck in the room with the others.
E.M. took an Uber home and the driver consoled her on the way, the document said. That driver had not been identified at the time the document was filed.
E.M.’s mother told police she found her daughter crying in the shower. E.M. told her mother she had gone to a hotel with a guy and thought it would just be him, but then others arrived in the room and asked her to do “horrific things,” the document said.
E.M.’s parents reported the incident to police and Hockey Canada. Sometime later, the player E.M. accompanied to the hotel contacted her through social media and urged her to retract the police report, the document said.
The player was interviewed by police and told them he met E.M. at the bar and they drank together, but he didn’t know how much she was drinking. They took a cab together to the hotel. After the sexual activity, he ordered food, the document said.
The player confirmed he texted his teammates to come to his room, but he couldn’t remember exactly who came, and he told police E.M. seemed fine with their presence, the document said.
He told police he left for five minutes to get his food and when he returned, sexual activity was taking place. The details of this and much of what happened after are redacted.
The player took the first video because he “was worried something like this (in reference to a police investigation) would happen,” the document said. He made the second video to obtain her consent at the end of the night, it said.
The player told police he found E.M. on Instagram after hearing from Hockey Canada that a report had been made to police, the document said.
The player’s roommate told investigators he heard there was a woman in their hotel room who wanted to do redacted sexual acts. He said he went to the room with others, at least one of whom left within a few minutes. Most of his account is redacted.
Other players described going to the room and seeing a woman there along with several teammates, but the details of their accounts are largely redacted.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 4, 2024.
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.
