Five members of Canada’s 2018 World Youth Team ordered to surrender to police and face sexual assault charges: Report | Top Vip News

Five members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team were ordered to surrender to police in London, Ontario, to face sexual assault charges. according to a report by The Globe and Mail.

The players have not yet been charged, but have been given a period of time to surrender to London police, according to The Globe and Mail.

London police said The Athletic Wednesday “were unable to provide an update.”

“When there is more information to share about this investigation, we will contact the media,” a department spokesperson said. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly also declined to comment.

The pending charges relate to an alleged sexual assault of a woman by several players in a London hotel room on June 19, 2018, following a Hockey Canada Foundation event.

The allegations became public in a lawsuit filed by the woman against the governing body in April 2022. In the complaint, filed in Ontario Superior Court, the woman alleged that she was assaulted by eight players in a hotel room after the event. of the foundation. Members of Canada’s 2018 world junior team were among those accused of assault in the lawsuit.

Hockey Canada settled the lawsuit in May 2022.

After the lawsuit became public, London police and Hockey Canada reopened their investigations into the incident and the NHL also launched an investigation. The initial London police investigation was closed in February 2019, with no charges brought.

In October 2022, London police investigators said in a filing with the Ontario Court of Justice that they had reasonable grounds to believe that five members of the 2018 world junior team sexually assaulted a woman in a hotel room. The evidence has not been tested in court.

Hockey Canada has been under intense scrutiny since the allegations became public. CEO Scott Smith left the governing body and the entire board resigned in October 2022. Two months later, the federation elected a new board to serve a special one-year term focused on “making the changes necessary to improve the governance”. in Hockey Canada,” the federation said at the time of the board election. Hockey Canada subsequently hired Katherine Henderson as president and CEO; Henderson spent seven years as CEO of Curling Canada.

Additionally, the governing body did not allow players from the 2018 world junior team to participate in Team Canada’s 2023 IIHF Canadian World Championship squad in May.

MP Peter Julian, who has been among the most vocal supporters of institutional reform in the wake of parliamentary hearings held into how Hockey Canada handled the 2018 allegations, said he is hopeful Wednesday’s events signal a step forward. but that he remains “deeply saddened” by the way the federal government abandoned the woman who came forward with the allegations and others who have shared personal accounts of abuse in sports.

“We really need to implement those strong recommendations so that the federal government does the important follow-up that has been neglected for so long,” Julian said. The Athletic.

“There have been a tragic number of victims. With the charges, I think we can see a beginning of a measure of justice, but there is a very, very long road ahead and we have a responsibility to act.”

Hockey Canada also has a long way to go to repair its relationships with the provincial and regional governing bodies, which oversee minor hockey across the country. Several federations threatened to withhold player participation fees paid to Hockey Canada. In response, Hockey Canada did not collect any evaluation fees from participants for the 2022-23 season.

Several major sponsors have ended their association with the organization, including Nike. The sneaker brand, which had sponsored Hockey Canada since 1999, initially paused the relationship in 2022 before permanently ending it in July 2023.

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(Photo: Andy Devlin/Getty Images)