The 5 Players On Trial From The 2018 Canadian World Junior Hockey Team Have Officially Been Found Not Guilty By A Judge
Cole Burston. Getty Images.If you've been paying attention to the world of sports at all over the last few years, then you know about this trial. Five members of the 2018 Canadian World Juniors team--Carter Hart, Dillon Dubé, Alex Formenton, Michael McLeod and Cal Foote--were all accused of committing sexual assault during the tournament. The charges didn't come until a few years later when most of these guys were all playing in the NHL. Carter Hart with the Philadelphia Flyers, Dillon Dube with the Calgary Flames, Michael McLeod and Cal Foote with the New Jersey Devils. At that point, Alex Formenton was already out of the NHL and playing in Switzerland.
There were a few years of accusations leading up to the charges. There was a settlement made in 2022. An investigation started a few months later that took a couple years. Eventually, the players were told to surrender themselves to London police in January of 2024. And after a trial that lasted for months, Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia finally gave her verdict today.
All 5 players have been acquitted on all their charges, and the verdict stated that the evidence against them was neither credible nor reliable.
Now let's just take a brief moment here to say this still isn't a ruling to celebrate. This is an awfully shitty situation for everybody involved. Obviously we'll never truly know what exactly went down in that hotel room back in 2018. "Not Guilty" doesn't directly translate to "Fully Innocent". There's so much grey area between what is illegal, and what is immoral. So while these guys may not have committed anything illegal that would require them to spend any time behind bars, it's also fully possible that the accuser was still put in a tough situation where she felt helpless and went along with everything out of fear. And that's heartbreaking.
But this is what trials are for. To navigate through those grey areas of illegal and immoral, and come to a final decision. That decision was made today when these 5 players were all found Not Guilty. And there's the other heartbreaking half of this story. Because at no point will these players ever fully be able to shake the label of sexual assault. Even if their careers continue and they find their way back into the NHL, that cloud will hover over them forever. The Duke Lacrosse scandal happened in 2006, and people still act like they were guilty damn near 20 years later after it's been proven that it was all a hoax.
What will be interesting is what happens from here. All of these guys are 27-years-old. They had their careers taken from them right as they were entering their prime. It'll probably take a while for the dust to settle from this verdict, and for an NHL team to figure out whether or not they can sign one of these players. As of now, they aren't able to play in the NHL.
But I'm sure that'll change with the verdict today. You can't say someone is not eligible to play because of an accusation they were found not guilty of. But still, that NHL team will end up having to do the equation about whether or not the player's skill is going to be worth the PR headache of signing them. I'm sure that all of these players on their own still have the ability to play at an NHL level. But they will be judged on a scale that makes it so much harder for a team to take a chance on them now.
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Again, just a brutal situation for everybody involved. For the players, for the accuser, for the NHL teams who released these players, for Hockey Canada. Everybody ended up losing here. But at the very least, it's over and everybody can start moving on.