At this point, it doesn’t take a genius to roughly figure out who the accused are in the 2018 world junior sex-assault allegations case.
It’s process of elimination. You go down the roster and line it up with the current NHLers who’ve come out and said they weren’t involved. Some of them could be lying, but it would be a strange sort of lie to tell.
At the end of that thought exercise, you won’t know anything. Not the sort of knowing that can be responsibly reported in a newspaper. But you’ve got a decent idea.
It says a lot about where hockey’s at in the national estimation that it’s become a bit of a Canadian pastime. The No. 1 dinner party question I used to get was “What is so-and-so like?” Now it’s “Who did it?” – followed by a list of names for elimination.
The names have been floating around for almost a year, ever since Parliament got a missile lock on Hockey Canada’s leadership. For a couple of months there, it was the biggest story going. Yet seasons have passed, the story has faded, and we are still futzing around with this.
You think it’s weird that Canada can’t get a 1,200-kilometre pipeline built? Then I refer you to this matter.
On Monday, it floated back up near the top of the news cycle. Hockey Canada has a new board, one that looks less like a class picture from the United Fruit Company directors’ luau just before Castro took over Cuba. We are meant to believe these are the right-thinking, people-first leaders who will guide Canadian hockey through its crisis of faith.
Their first major move? Sealing off the evidence.
The evidence is people. Generally speaking, we have a rough idea of what’s alleged to have happened. What everyone wants to know now is whether they’ve been unwittingly wearing the replica jersey of a bad guy. Eventually, the names will come out, because they always do. What we’re wrestling with now is how long “eventually” lasts. Apparently, Hockey Canada would like it to be a while. Possibly forever.
The governing body announced Monday that no one from the 2018 world junior team will be permitted to play for the senior national team for the time being. The decision will affect the team Canada sends to the world championship in Finland and Latvia in May.
That’s a tournament no one watches because it’s right in the middle of the fun part of the NHL playoffs. But because hockey is not exactly full of deep thinkers, you can see the math here: Team Canada + Reporters + Games No One Cares About + Mixed Zones = Trouble.
Instead of dealing with that issue, it’s much easier to pretend it isn’t happening. Is brand new Hockey Canada looking around for a motto to encapsulate its latest bold direction? How about Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. It’s French and it’s true.
This ineligibility of players will extend until “the investigation and adjudicative process of this alleged incident in 2018 are complete.”
Parliamentarians believe the investigation is already done. Tory MP Kevin Waugh told The Canadian Press he’s looking around for a copy of it. But the “adjudicative process”? What a wonderful dodge that is.
We could be adjudicating this thing forever. All it takes is one wheel-spinning lawsuit or a police investigation that never officially closes.
That turns the entire 2018 world junior squad into Schrodinger’s hockey team – everyone is guilty and not guilty.
For years now, the investigation excuse has been used as a temporary bulwark: “We’d love to explain our side of things, but due to the ongoing investigation …”
It’s never true. People can talk about whatever they’d like to talk about. But through repetition, the public has been convinced you are prohibited from talking about anything that has a legal patina.
Most outfits accept that this protection only lasts so long. All they’re buying is a few days or weeks to get their bearings.
Hockey Canada thinks bigger: What if we could be investigating forever? What if we just sidelined everyone, regardless of who publicly said they did what? If there’s no one to talk to, then there’s nothing to talk about? And if there’s nothing to talk about, did anything happen at all?
This is a public trust doing this, though I hesitate to use that description.
We know private corporations will say anything to get out of a jam. You can’t blame them. It’s in their nature.
But even they don’t try this sort of thing. Not because they’re better, but because they know it doesn’t work. It draws every eye onto you but doesn’t bring whatever crisis you’re in any closer to resolution.
Hockey Canada is a year into this slow-motion disaster. It is not a cop, but it knows who’s accused of what. Just don’t put those guys on the team, it figures. No one need name anyone. Then let it go.
How hard is that to figure out? But no, despite all the changes, Hockey Canada continues to be an organization that would rather zig or zag than play straight.
Here’s a possible scenario to help illustrate the moral, let’s call it ambiguity, at work here.
What if we were two months from the Olympics rather than a world championship? What if NHL players were going to those Games?
Do you seriously believe that Hockey Canada would be humming this same tune if we were talking about taking A Player Who Matters off Olympic Team Canada?
Let’s name no names, but picture a player who is an on-ice difference maker. A superstar. Let us assume he has said he was not involved in the alleged sexual assault. Again, it would be a strange sort of lie to tell.
Rob Canada of that sort of guy at a tournament people actually care about because of an “adjudicative process”? It wouldn’t happen. It would turn one PR nightmare into a connected, bigger one. It would draw in half the NHL and lead the news for weeks.
Faced with that choice, Hockey Canada would confront its problem. If it would do it then, but not now, then what are we talking about here? What is the goal?
But a year into this, despite all that’s happened and all that’s ostensibly changed, we’re still doing what we were doing at the beginning – hands over ears and mouths, hoping no one will notice.
Cathal Kelly