There's Blood On Their Hands

Let me be very clear when I say that this Hockey Canada story should not go away until the entire organization has been razed, burned to the ground, its ashes buried, and the earth upon which it stood is scorched. Hockey Canada executives sat in front of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage again today to explain how incidents of sexual assault could happen and be covered up on their watch, and the answers the committee received were filled with anything but accountability and responsibility. If you wanted to see an organization so hellbent on keeping its own reputation intact, Hockey Canada was doing a magnificent job in letting everyone but themselves down again today.

Let me preface this rant by saying that I'm not a judge nor jury, so whether Hockey Canada survives this embarrassing and abhorrent era in their existence or does not is not going to legally be decided by me. I'll leave that up to people way smarter than I am, but I can weigh in from the court of public opinion because this seems like it's going to end badly and brutally for Hockey Canada. And, if I may say so, they absolutely deserve the backlash they're receiving and have yet to receive.

In front of the committee sat Danielle Robitaille of Toronto law firm Henein Hutchison LLP who was the law firm hired by Hockey Canada to lead an "independent investigation" of the 2018 incident in London, Ontario. With Hockey Canada hiring their own investigator, that already may raise some eyebrows about objectivity in the matter, but we'll let this one play out because we already know the ending. Hearing from Miss Robitaille might provide some clarity on what Hockey Canada did or didn't do in reaching their decision to pay the victim to keep quiet.

According to reports today, Robitaille told the committee that "only 10 members o[f] the 19 Canada's World Junior Championship roster present at the London gala event that preceded the alleged sexual assault were interviewed. Seven players would not participate until a police investigation was complete. Two refused participation completely at the time."

Ten members were interviewed? Let's go to the transcript of the June 20 committee meeting where both Tom Renney and Scott Smith were answering questions. On that day, Renney stated, "I can't tell you that we've confirmed a number of players who identified and communicated with the investigation. I don't know that number specifically. I'm going to give you an opportunity to hear a guess, which is that it might have been four to six, and I apologize for not being more succinct."

The honourable Peter Julian asked for clarification on Renney's response, stating, "Was that four to six who did not co-operate or four to six who did?" to which Renney answered, "That's four to six who were able to participate in a discussion."

Ok, so four to six is clearly less than ten, so how would Renney be that far off when it comes to an investigation his organization had requested? Further to this, incoming Hockey Canada CEO Scott Smith added more confusion to the discussion when he contradicted Renney by answering a question from Mr. Julian, saying "I'd like to clarify, and I stand to be corrected on this, but I'm fairly confident that 12 to 13 of the 19 players who were at the gala participated in the investigation. The numbers that Mr. Renney referred to were not necessarily the numbers of those who did participate, but those who did not. I just wanted to clarify that."

Again, ten is a very specific number, and it's less than 12 or 13. For Smith to correct Renney's statement after Mr. Julian already had asked Renney for clarity is entirely baffling, but to have a different number than what the investigation found shows how completely inept this leadership group is. They can't even get simple numbers correct, let alone having their stories straight about what was happening behind the scenes.

Beyond the numbers that Hockey Canada can't see to agree upon, the lack of transparency in any and all matters surrounding the 2018 incident of sexual assault involving eight players from the CHL and/or Hockey Canada was fully on display as Miss Robitaille continually stonewalled the committee's questioning by invoking client/solicitor privilege as instructed by Hockey Canada.

While it's within Hockey Canada's right to do this, the very nature of the hearing is to dig deeper into this incident and its cover-up. Telling your lawyer to clam up when people are demanding answers only makes it look like Hockey Canada has something to hide. Again. So many times again.

We're far from getting clear and concise answers as to who was responsible, who was involved, and what the corrective measures will be to ensure this never happens again, but it seems very apparent that Hockey Canada is rotten to its core by the way its executives have bumbled through the first few days of this Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage hearing. There should be blood spilled when it comes to the executives at Hockey Canada losing their positions at the very least, but that's the price one pays for covering up despicable crimes under their watch.

The first people through the wall always get bloody, as shown in the Moneyball clip above, and we already have the names of the executives who should be first to go. If were doing this right, the bloodletting at Hockey Canada will continue until everyone who could have stopped these crimes from happening are gone. There's blood on everyone's hands at this point, and it seems only fair to spill some of their own after all they've done in eroding the implicit trust people had in Hockey Canada.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!