A summer that shattered the Canadian hockey myth

Clip You’re listening to a Frequency Podcast Network production in association with CityNews.

Jordan The World Junior Championships of men’s hockey begin today in Edmonton. This tournament will be very different than in past years. And no, that’s not because they’re playing in August instead of December.

Clip A stunning admission at a committee hearing into an alleged gang rape by junior hockey players at a Hockey Canada Foundation charity event in 2018. Two of Canada’s men’s junior hockey teams are now under police investigation following additional sexual assault allegations, including one from 2003. Hockey Canada officials were back in the hot seat today. A Commons Committee is investigating how the organization handled multiple allegations of sexual assault. Nine settlement payments have been made, totalling $7.6 million. The chair of the Hockey Canada Board, Michael Brendamur, is resigning from his post, effective immediately.

Jordan These are, of course, not the first allegations of sexual assault against a hockey player. Nor are they the first accusations of leaders and officials trying to keep ugly behaviour from the public. We’ve seen this before. But these allegations each involve several members of Canadian World Junior teams. The details of them, which we won’t repeat here, are truly awful. And look, it is worth mentioning here that these are members of Canada’s World Junior teams. Theoretically, at least, some of the best of our boys, the ones we settle down to watch as a family on Boxing Day, the ones hockey parents hold up as examples for their kids, and, of course, the ones raised to near mythical status by Hockey Canada and by a whole lot of other people who make a whole lot of money from this tournament every year. That myth is gone now. A reckoning is here. Is Canada’s national identity so interwoven with tournaments just like this? Ready for that? And why did it take this, these allegations, to finally get us here when the warning signs have been there all along? I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Michael Grange is a columnist for Sportsnet. He appears on radio and TV and podcasts, and he wrote recently about the Hockey Canada myth and how it shattered this summer. Hey, Michael.

Michael Grange Jordan, how are you?

Jordan I’m doing really well. Thank you for joining us.

Michael Grange My pleasure.

Jordan The World Junior Championships begin today in August, which is weird, first of all. But can you begin, maybe as you kind of did in your column, by outlining the typical Canadian ritual that usually surrounds this tournament?

Michael Grange Yeah, the World Juniors is kind of a fascinating thing. Right. It didn’t exist prior to the kind of early 1980s in the form we know it now, and over that time became kind of a cultural juggernaut, at least a touchstone. And it was always held over the holiday season and the puck would drop on Boxing Day and on New Year’s Eve. There will always be a big rivalry game, typically against the US or Russia, and then the finals and the semi-finals would play out after that, and the whole thing would wrap up and winter break would be over and everyone would be back at school. And it kind of checked every box. Right. People were looking for things to do. It was a wholesome family thing. And there was a prospect of Canada winning and also you’re seeing the future play up before your eyes. So I think it was a really powerful or is a really powerful myth-making machine. And for the most part, we’ve all been pretty happy to subscribe to it. Right. Because it feels good.

Jordan Now, that sounds wonderful. And typically Canadian. And it all sounds very organic. Is it really organic? As you mentioned, this didn’t become a big thing until the 80s. It really became a humongous thing over the course of the 90s. How did it really become such a cultural touchstone aside from the fact that we’re Canadian and we love hockey, around Christmas?

Michael Grange I think the big step that was taken was TSN became a broadcasting partner with Hockey Canada and recognized it for what it was, potentially, and all credit to them, and created a huge spectacle around it and Hockey Canada couldn’t be happy to go along. Right. It became Hockey Canada’s single largest source of revenue. Right. For all the reasons I outlined, the cream of the crop in corporate Canada, all the leading brands were kind of falling over themselves to be associated with it as well. It was just too good a property and too well presented to stay away from. And again, you get that captive audience, which in an increasingly fragmented universe becomes even more powerful. So I think that the other side of this is all the wholesomeness of this and the myth-making became like kitty litter for Corporate Canada and became a cascade for Hockey Canada.

Jordan Now, how different and I’ve already mentioned we’re playing it in August, aside from around Christmas, but how different is this year’s tournament on, which the puck drops today going to be?

Michael Grange Well, it’s being played out under a cloud, and there couldn’t be many Canadians who aren’t familiar with the broad strokes of the general themes of why you have two different teams, World Junior Teams that have been credibly associated with sexual assault. And one was the 2018 World Junior Team, and it was an event in the summer at a fundraising event, and eight players have been implicated by the victim. And the other was the 2003 team, where six players are alleged to have engaged in what is clearly a crime if it’s proven that way during the World Tournament itself in Halifax, Nova Scotia. And I think any allegations like this are always very disturbing for very obvious reasons. But I think what sets these apart a little bit, at least in my mind I can’t speak for everybody, is you have eight players from one team and six from another. And these teams, I believe, have rosters of 21 or 22. So basically a third of these two rosters put together is alleged to have taken part in these assaults to some degree or another. And you can only imagine there had to be probably more people who were at least somehow had knowledge of them or were adjacent to them in some shape or form. Again, we don’t know all those details. And so I think what really is so disturbing is if this was one player or two, I wouldn’t minimize it, certainly can’t minimize it on behalf of the victim. You can kind of sort of making the argument it’s a couple of bad apples, right? And that doesn’t excuse anything. But in this instance, when you have a significant percentage of these rosters and keep in mind, I think, part of going back to that myth-making element we talked about, these are the best of the best of the brightest you know these kids who have kind of been elevated through the minor hockey system. They’re the best players, obviously. They’re typically the ones who wore the captain’s letters and have been fed it at every single stage.

Jordan And they’re sold to us as future NHLS during this tournament.

Michael Grange Yeah, to me, that’s almost the secondary element of this. Yeah, they’re future NHLS. But it’s more that if you’ve had families, if your family has been engaged in hockey, and Mine has, they’re the ones that were on the best teams, that were the best on the best teams that if you follow this through, they should be representative of whatever value system that we hold dear. And instead, you have, like we said, a significant minority will say that at least, but a significant number of players on these rosters engaging in something heinous and then the follow from all of that where people either knew and didn’t say anything, people have been hesitant to come forward and all the things associated with that, it’s really hard to look at the event that’s unfolding this week and certainly it’ll maybe resonate even more when they get back on schedule at Christmas 2022/23 and look at it exactly the same way. Like, it’s going to be very difficult for the broadcasters and Hockey Canada and obviously, the sponsors have made their feelings known to kind of sell and for others to buy into this myth that has made this thing such a juggernaut in the first place.

Jordan And we’ll spare listeners the details of these allegations. They’re readily available credit to Rick Westhead at TSN, who has been reporting on this since the very beginning. But these two scandals obviously are the worst news to come out of hockey recently. But also, can you maybe explain the fallout that that myth has seen since these allegations were revealed? Because a number of things have happened.

Michael Grange Number one, corporate Canada has pushed themselves away from Hockey Canada. So all those brands that have been so closely tied with Junior Hockey and the World Juniors put themselves at arm’s length. They haven’t exactly divorced yet, but they are separated.

Jordan Right.

Michael Grange The Canadian government, through their Parliamentary committee this summer, has taken a fairly unusual step in terms of the speed at which all this has happened. And the season, right, MPs like to take their summers off too, and they’ve been in session, I believe, twice, and they expect to be in session again in September, investigating what Hockey Canada knew, what steps they took to address these issues, if there was a cover-up, to what extent it went on. And I think it’s fairly evident. I think there’s been at least one resignation. I think there’s likely going to be more to follow. But Hockey Canada is being tested, they’re being thoroughly examined for what systemic elements may have led to this kind of thing and what systemic elements have prevented it from being dealt with earlier. It’s only come to light because other people have brought it to light. We were in this process with the 2018 team and then the 2003 incident. I don’t know what the right way to say it is, but if anything, seems even more egregious, more like nightmarish and that came to light. No criminal investigations in the case of the 2018 team have been reopened, originally investigated in Shelf, and then I think it’s been open for the first time in the Halifax situation. So there’s a lot more to come.

Jordan I know you can maybe only speak for yourself as a hockey parent, but one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you was because of your piece on the myth that we build up, that you’ve already kind of mentioned. What has all of this done to that myth this summer? Like speaking for you and for the hockey people you talk to, maybe, is it still possible to believe in the really good parts of the Canadian hockey myth?

Michael Grange Right now, it’s difficult. And I’m not necessarily saying that that itself is a bad thing if we step away gently from the discussion around the victims and around the incidents themselves because you don’t want to minimize those in any shape or form.

Jordan No.

Michael Grange I feel like hockey, so to speak, big hockey candidates. It’s almost like in the kind of an existential crisis here because the way we’ve related to hockey has often been under this grand mess, right? That hockey was dearly important to us, that it was a character-shaping ritual that we could go through individually or with our families, and somehow we’d all be the better for it. And it would be served as a way to bring us together. And we’ve seen that over and over again, be it World Junior Championship Games, certainly in 2010, and the golden goal and other moments we can point to and there’s a lot of good in that. I think when you’re a parent and you’ve got young kids, clearly, the examples they need to follow should come from you. And ideally, it does. But we outsource, right? Like, we’re looking for examples. We’re looking for things that can engage our kids and kind of let them know what’s possible if you’re willing to take certain steps or what it requires to be your best, and all those kinds of messages, which we rely on maybe as parents and like I say, we outsource them sometimes. And hockey has been probably in Canada being the one that probably people have relied on the most for various reasons.

Jordan Sure.

Michael Grange And so I think in a healthy way, it’s probably a good time to reflect on that a little bit when we make those choices, understand exactly what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and maybe extend this a little bit beyond hockey. Because I will say this, much like my job is to be around elite athletics, I pay attention to elite athletics. And I think anyone who’s kind of been witnessed to, I guess, how the sausage gets made, so to speak, you have to understand, like, name a sport and we can find a scandal. Swimming, gymnastics, skiing, we can all go down that list. But I think hockey sometimes, because of its prominence, it takes a lot more heat routinely, and I think a lot of other endeavours get off kind of lightly in this respect. I’m not sure there’s anything particularly unique about hockey that creates a scandal. I think the scandals are there and we pay attention because they’re hockey, and you know now we’re talking about the fabric of a country and there’s kind of a nation-building element that hockey is traditionally associated with going right back to Summit Series in 72 and maybe even before that. And the myth of Gordie Howe on the frozen ponds in Saskatchewan, right?

Jordan We’ve invested clearly a lot of our national identity in this.

Michael Grange We have. And I think there was a lot that positive that came out of it. But I think the identity of the country is changing by the minute. And the timing of this for hockey is challenging because you know when something like this happens, it gets harder and harder for them to sell their story and I think typically would get a little bit harder for people to buy into that story. And I should add this as a caveat. Like the kids and families who are involved this week in Edmonton and who are going to be involved in December, January in Halifax, they don’t deserve any of that, right? None of their boys have been accused of anything. And I happen to know several of the families, and they’re great people who’ve done everything possible they can for their kids. And it is a shame that through reasons completely independent of them, there’s their moment, which should be a glorious moment because it is a very special thing to reach this level, is somehow sullied, right? So we should mention that. But I think going forward, it’s going to be a challenge for Hockey Canada to maintain its primacy. And for every event like this, it’s going to make it that much more difficult still.

Jordan How did this myth survive for so long in the first place? Because we’ve been doing this show for four years and I think we’ve done a couple of episodes every year about scandals and hockey. Whether it’s abuse, dressing room culture, silence from coaches and management who should probably be speaking out like this is, the scale of these allegations is different, but this doesn’t actually feel like that different from some of the stories that have emerged from professional and high-level junior hockey over the last several years.

Michael Grange Yeah, I think that’s a fair observation. My answer for that would be I think things have been chipping away at hockey for a long time now and there are even broader cultural forces at work than kind of bouncing from scandal to scandal. So, how has it continued? I would say so many things that have happened before. I think you can kind of make the case that, sure, there are some bad things going on in hockey, but when they do surface, there more. You can kind of isolate them as one-offs or exceptions, accurately or not, and fairly or not. And I think why this one is different is because, to me, there are a couple of things. One, it is like this is the pinnacle. This isn’t a junior hockey team and kind of somewhere in Saskatchewan, it’s not one rogue individual. I go back to the numbers and to the silence and that it’s occurred like under the umbrella of the most singularly elite, special pinnacle moment for the sport outside of, let’s say, the Stanley Cup final, to kind of extend it a little bit, these are kind of all our sons, right? If you’ve got a kid in hockey and a kind of elite sport, it’s very easy to kind of relate to the journey some of these guys on, fairly accurately or not. Just speaking for myself, what is so deeply disturbing about this? And again, I’ll leave the issues that the victims are dealing with aside, right, because that’s a different category. But I think what’s so troubling is a big reason why we value sports so highly and in Canada, we value hockey so highly, is that it is character building, it is leadership development, it is understanding that you’ve got to stand up and stay strong under a certain amount of adversity, sometimes a lot of adversity. And the concept is testing yourself in this kind of false construct, which is what they are, right? These two things really aren’t attached to anything significant. But if you test yourself. You’re better able to go out into a world that’s kind of crazy and unpredictable and you can do so with a bit of confidence and maybe as parents. You can send them out into the world with a little bit of hope. Right. That things are going to be okay. So what really bothers me is that of the eight kids on this 2018 team. Or of the six kids, the six kids who are now well-grown adults, on the 2003 team and anyone who’s adjacent to any of those events. No one stood up and said. Guys. This is ridiculous. Guys, this is bad. We got to stop. This isn’t right, not one. And if I was in a decision-making place for hockey, if I was in a decision-making place for sport, that’s what I would zero in on. Things do go off the rail sometimes, and they only stay that way if no one says anything. And I think if you’re a parent looking at all of this going, you invest in this so that your kids become better people and better-prepared people. And instead, you have, in one case, eight of the best and brightest, most gifted, talented, hardworking, dedicated among us, and not one of them stood up for the victim in real-time. And subsequently, when people have spoken up, it’s generally to say, it wasn’t me. And then in the 2003 case, the same thing. And that really should cause people to wonder, and should cause people within the hockey firmament to wonder, what messages are we really delivering? How are they being heard? Who is delivering them? Why are they not the right messages? And so often you know being part of a team? And hockey, I think in some ways quite rightly, is viewed as the ultimate team sport because you’re only as good as your weakest link. People do have to buy in and sacrifice, and these are wonderful things. So why then, with all those principles so deeply ingrained in theory, why does it only apply to your team and your teammates? Why can’t it apply to people weaker than you, people who need you in a crisis? And you know I think that to me, would be something that Hockey Canada really needs to examine. And I know they’re doing a lot of stuff around consent training and diversity inclusion training. I know they’re really trying to kind of, if they haven’t already, to try and get ahead of some of these issues, which is admirable. But I think it boils down to being able to stand up, see what’s right, see what’s wrong, and speak up. And I think if one person in either of those environments had the conviction to recognize what was going on, why it was wrong, they can’t all have been comfortable with it and speak up, so much of this could have been avoided and the trajectory of the lives of a couple of victims probably would be very different today. And that’s, to me, what it boils down to, is if you’re doing what it takes as a family to put your kid into elite sports, and in this case, elite hockey, you don’t sit there and hope, my kid is going to go to the NHL because it’s absurd. The hope is that your kid is going to emerge from it as a better person, a more a stronger person, a person who can stand up when things are difficult. And clearly, clearly, in these two instances, that’s been a massive, massive failure and that’s, to me, the heart of what needs to be fixed.

Jordan That was powerful. Michael, thank you for this. And I guess we’ll see if anybody says anything at this World Juniors or if they just try to ignore it.

Michael Grange Thanks for having me, Jordan.

Jordan Michael Grange of Sportsnet. That was The Big Story. For more, head to thebigstorypodcast.ca to find, yes, those several other episodes that I talked about bad behaviour in hockey. The red flags have been flying for a while. You can talk to us on Twitter at @TheBigStoryFPN. You can also email us. I’m sure some of you will want to after this episode. That address is [click here!]. And of course, you can call us up and yell and scream or just thank us for doing a great job. The phone number is 416-935-5935. You can find The Big Story every single place you get your podcasts. You can rate us, you can review us, and of course, please do pass our show along to a friend. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow. Back to top of page