Hockey Canada is the umbrella group that provides a lot of funding and logistical support to hockey programs, especially the junior leagues that are the stepping stone to the NHL.
News came out two months ago that a young women complained of sexual assault by eight junior hockey players at a gala in 2018, and she got paid off and shut up by Hockey Canada. Can’t have those young players’ careers affected, after all.
Now it’s come out how Hockey Canada found the money for the settlements. They’ve been operating a secret fund, set up from membership fees paid by parents of young players, because you can’t insure against your own members’ criminal actions.
Young hockey players, trying to make a career, funding the payouts for older hockey players who assault young women, and keep it all nice and quiet so players’ careers don’t suffer. Yeah, that’s a good funding model and publicity choice.
You’re in trouble when the Prime Minister of Canada is calling you out, essentially as enablers of sexual assault.
I should hope so. This is a disgusting practice, and I’d bet money that there are groups here that do this kind of thing themselves, it’s not just individual Universities or cities. Just WOW. So glad they are getting called out.
Per this article, use of the fund was effectively off-the-books:
The current focus of the news coverage is outrage that membership fees were being funneled to this fund without anyone’s knowledge, but I want to know — is that actually legal? The fund and its disbursements weren’t disclosed in financial reporting, and by using the fund the organization kept its activities out of view of its insurers. Seems to me that goes beyond just moral skeeviness and could potentially cross a line of fraud and failure to disclose.
I would guess that that question is being asked, in the insurers’ boardrooms and possibly elsewhere.
The reason for the fund is that you can’t insure against your own members’ criminal misconduct, so it wouldn’t be covered by insurance. However, I would think that the existence of the secret fund triggers concerns amongst their insurers that Hockey Canada is not giving full disclosure of ancillary risks. For instance negligent or intentional non-disclosure of the payments under the fund might trigger insurance obligations. Did their insurers know about that risk?
Most of Hickey Canadàs corporate sponsors have put a freeze on further payments.
From a strictly financial point of view, the fund seems to be a form of self-insurance. But I would imagine that the actual insurance companies would want to know about that sort of thing.
Yes, I can imagine the questions they might be asking:
“So how often does this happen, that you actually need a special fund to make the payouts?”
“Are any officials in Hockey Canada involved in making the payouts and buying silence?”
“Have payouts been conditional on a contractual undertaking by the complainants not to go to the police?”
“Have payouts been conditional on non-disclosure agreements with Hockey Canada?”
“How many officials at Hockey Canada have known of this issue over the years, and what have they done to stop it from happening in the future?”
Those are all things that could potentially trigger civil liability by Hockey Canada, and which put the insurer at risk. I could see the insurer wanting a lot more details.
That’s what the fees for kids and teenageers who wanted to pkay hockey were going towards: buying the silence of victims of sexual assault so that it wouldn’t keep big guys with promising careers from playing in the big leagues.
Re-reading that post — I’m not suggesting that victims of sexual assault shouldn’t be compensated. If they’ve been assaulted, they should be compensated.
The problem is that there’s no indication that the guys who did the assaults have contributed in any way to the compensation. At least, there’s no indication of that in any of the news stories. Hockey Canada is making the payouts to protect the careers of predators.
Right. Compensation should definitely be part of the restitutions. As you note, the problem is that so far it has been the only part.
It also needs consequences for the perpetrators, consequences for those who contributed to an environment where this could happen, changes to the environment and culture to minimize the chances of it happening again, and it all needs to be public so people understand the scope of the problem.
It is almost as if raping someone is a reward for being a good hockey player. Now, I know it isn’t. But I’m sure that the players have received no more punishment than a “I’m disappointed in you.” by someone representing the team and Hockey Canada. Disgusting behavior on Hockey Canada’s part, not to mention the perpetrator’s part.
4 current NHL players and 1 former NHL player (now playing in Europe), all former members of the Canada World Junior Team in 2018, will appear in court on Monday, accused of participating in a gang rape.
At the very least, I’d imagine that the players could sue for a refund of the fees that went into it.
The other thing is, compensation is different from hush money. The proper way of dealing with sexual assault includes transparency. Including transparently prosecuting the perpetrators, of course.
