While the “courting” phase continues in the PWHL—brilliantly wrapped, packaged, and delivered to the public—its first test is coming on February 1st. The PWHL will host a three-on-three showcase on NHL All-Star Thursday at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. Twenty-four players from the six teams, with ten skaters and two goaltenders on each roster, will compete for twenty minutes.

The two teams have been named King and Kloss, in honour of PWHL Advisory Board members Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss, who married in 2018 and have been together for over forty years.

Can this fresh, shiny new league withstand an onslaught of criticism because of its frank acknowledgement of two gay women?

I hope so—since some players are openly gay and in relationships with one another. This is what sets the PWHL apart from the NHL and makes me nervous about it affiliating itself with a league that still hasn’t figured out how to address Pride.

But, if we think this showcase will attract the biggest hockey headlines in the coming months, we are kidding ourselves. The London police have informed five players from the 2018 Canadian WJH team to surrender in order to face charges of sexual assault. The names of the players have not yet been revealed, but speculation is rampant. I don’t even want to contemplate how these headlines will devastate their families—and their victim. Again.

The Sporting News breaks down the story here: https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nhl/news/hockey-canada-scandal-sexual-assault-2018-world-juniors-team/hhc

I started a post like this one in June 2022—shortly after the scandal broke regarding the alleged assault of a twenty-year-old woman by eight players from the Canadian WJH team.

I was livid—and I still am. For five years, eight young men have hidden behind a young woman’s wish to withhold their names. I suspect she did so because she feared the Court of Public Opinion would crucify her for “ruining careers.”

My enthusiasm for the WJHC has been tainted ever since. I’m certainly not the only person who feels this way. When we attended the WJHC in Edmonton in August 2022, attendance was abysmal.

I also watch the NHL draft through an entirely different lens. I find myself wondering about the moral compass of each talented young man donning the jersey of his new NHL franchise and tugging a baseball cap over his hockey hair. Successful, handsome, and charismatic, these young men are our gods, and that means many will refuse to hold them accountable for their actions, no matter how base.

Both my daughters played hockey. Many of my friends’ children played. I love the game.

Sport is an opportunity to develop as a whole person, not just as an athlete. Hockey has so many great lessons to teach about humility, perseverance, good sportsmanship, and being a good teammate.

What happened in that hotel room in 2018 has nothing to do with any of the above.

There are millions of young men who would never consider orchestrating a similar situation, who understand that eight men and one woman in a hotel room is an unconscionable number. And if the perpetrators truly believed all parties were consensual, why didn’t they step forward and face the cameras and questions? Instead, they were willing to let the public outcry take down Hockey Canada—the very organization that fostered their careers.

Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking. These eight men, whoever they are, have none. Soon we will see scripted statements of apology with phrases like, “This isn’t who I am” or “I’m deeply sorry for the pain this has caused my family” or “I was intoxicated, and I didn’t know what I was doing.” But in truth, the only thing they are sorry for is being exposed.

Over the years, Hockey Canada has tried to eradicate the demons of the “dark side” of hockey—hazing, harassment, bullying, racism, and sexual assault to name a few—but they haven’t succeeded. Furthermore, it has paid out millions to complainants and victims and attempted to bury misdeeds in order avoid legal battles and public outrage.

But in the end, the skeletons rise.

HC has already been purged, so there’s not much point in crying out for that. But that purge needs to continue to its source. The excuses of “boys will be boys” or “that’s just part of the game” must go. If a young man is going to play at any level, he must hold himself to accountable for his actions. He owes that to the parents who have invested time and money and energy in him, the fans who watch him, and the young people who look to him as a role model. It’s a simple choice, really. Before participating in any sort of dangerous or potentially harmful conduct, he should ask himself, “Would I want my grandparents to know about this?”

If they are found guilty, these players will be punished—not as hockey players, but as criminals. Even if they are found innocent, they will likely never play professional hockey again—and they shouldn’t. They have tainted the game and ruined the life of a young woman.

Postscript: I haven’t heard how the Halifax police investigation of an alleged assault of an intoxicated young woman by the 2003 Canadian WJH team is progressing. But those men, now retired from the NHL, are likely not sleeping all that well.