NHL commissioner says it’s not ‘necessary’ to suspend NHL players charged with sexual assault

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman says it’s not “necessary” for the NHL to suspend without pay four players who have been criminally charged with sexual assault.

The charges are tied to an alleged group sexual assault by players from Canada’s 2018 World Junior team who went on to play in the NHL. Police allege the incident happened in a player’s hotel room following a Hockey Canada Foundation Gala and Golf event on June 19, 2018.

Bettman told a press conference Friday the NHL players allegedly involved are now all on leave from their teams and are free agents. He said their contracts are set to expire at the end of the season, so they don’t need to be suspended.

“I don’t think that’s necessary at this stage,” said Bettman. “This is, as I’ve said repeatedly, a fairly complicated … matter.

“The fact that they’re away from their teams and not playing, I’m comfortable with. They’ve been paid the vast bulk of their salary for the year anyway.”

Bettman confirmed the players accused of crimes are currently receiving their paycheques.

He said that in order for an NHL team to terminate a contract “successfully, you need to be able to prove certain things.”

Focus is to ‘get this right’ and not on players’ pay, NHL commissioner says

Responding to a question about whether the NHL could suspend and withhold pay to four players recently charged with sexual assault, league commissioner Gary Bettman said he was already ‘comfortable’ with the fact they were away from their teams and not currently playing.

New Jersey Devils player Michael McLeod faces one charge of sexual assault and another of being a party to the offence, according to court documents. His teammate, Cal Foote, was also charged with one count of sexual assault.

The Devils re-signed McLeod and Foote last summer to one-year contracts worth $2.2 million combined.

Carter Hart of the Philadelphia Flyers, Dillion Dubé of the Calgary Flames and former Ottawa Senator Alex Formenton, who now plays in Switzerland, were also charged, according to court documents.

Lawyers for the players say they have denied any wrongdoing and will plead not guilty.

The five players allegedly involved in the case requested and were granted leaves of absences from their NHL and European teams last month ahead of surrendering to police.

• CBC explains: An alleged group sexual assault is headed to court. Here’s what could happen next

NHL won’t release results of probe

Bettman said the NHL’s own year-long external investigation into the alleged group sexual assault wrapped up last year. He also said the NHL would not release the results of the investigation “while these charges are pending.”

When asked why the league didn’t share its findings earlier, Bettman said the NHL was in the process of talking to the players’ association about how to move forward when news broke that the players were going to be criminally charged.

“I want to be clear. From the moment we first learned about this on May 26, 2022, I have repeatedly used the words abhorrent, reprehensible, horrific and unacceptable to describe the alleged behaviours,” he said. “And those words continue to apply.”

Bettman also didn’t commit Friday to releasing the league’s investigation report once the criminal matter wraps up. He said there are “constraints” on the information the league can release publicly “under any circumstance.”

When asked by CBC News for his message to the woman who allegedly was sexually assaulted, he said “we have to let the process play itself out.”

“We were not able to interview her,” said Bettman. “And there’s no fault there, she was absolutely within her rights not to talk to us and we respect that, but that impacts also how the investigation had a complexity to it.”

The commissioner said it’s “both inaccurate and unfair” to say there are systemic culture issues in hockey. He said hockey players and hockey families “overwhelmingly conduct themselves appropriately.”

“Ninety-nine-point-nine per cent of players, certainly in our league, conduct themselves appropriately,” said Bettman.

“…To take a handful of players in this or in other situations and use those allegations and condemn a particular sport, I don’t think is reflective of what we are.”

Bettman said the sexual assault allegations are “not typical of NHL players.”

“These players weren’t NHL players in the league playing games at the time this alleged incident took place,” he said.

Players’ sexual assault charges not a sign of hockey culture problem: NHL commissioner

When pressed about whether he felt the recent arrests of players for sexual assault pointed toward a systemic culture issue in the NHL and the sport, league commissioner Gary Bettman said to make that characterization would be ‘both inaccurate and unfair’ and that ‘99.9 per cent of the players … conduct themselves appropriately.’

Canada’s former sports minister Pascale St-Onge said last year there is a “systemic problem” of sexual violence and toxic masculinity in Canada’s hockey culture that Hockey Canada has failed to change.

Her comment was a response to a Fifth Estate investigation that identified at least 15 group sexual assault cases in Canada involving junior hockey players investigated by police since 1989 — half of which surfaced in the past decade.

• Sex and shame in Canada’s national game

The woman at the centre of the 2018 group sexual assault allegations, known only in court documents as “E.M.”, filed a $3.5 million lawsuit that Hockey Canada settled.

Anatomy of a Scandal 2

Allegations about misconduct at Hockey Canada

The settlement shook the sports world and parents were outraged to learn that their registration fees paid for the settlement without their knowledge, along with other settlements over the years tied to sexual abuse allegations that were worth millions of dollars.

London Police are scheduled to hold a press conference on Monday about the investigation they initially closed in 2019 without charges, only to re-open it in 2022 following a public outcry.