Brock university experts weigh in on trial of former Hockey Canada players

By Gazette Staff

July 28th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

The Courts have rendered a decision on the behaviour of the five hockey players.

The academics don’t see it all quite the same way.

Brock university experts weigh in on trial of former Hockey Canada players

While the sexual assault trial involving five former Hockey Canada players concluded with a not guilty verdict, the case will have far-reaching implications for the hockey community and wider society, say Brock University experts.

“While the verdict marked the end of the legal proceedings, the case itself reignited widespread scrutiny of hockey’s institutional values and the environments that elite players are socialized into,” says Assistant Professor of Sport Management Taylor McKee. “The outcome of the trial does not erase the cultural concerns that were brought to the surface, particularly around power, accountability and silence within hockey’s most protected spaces.”

McKee says an instinctive response for Hockey Canada would be to examine ways of “fixing” the problem by implementing training programs or other measures to prevent future sexual violence committed by hockey players.

But the actions of the players in question, including text messages they sent to each other discussing what to say to investigators about the night’s events, suggest they knew what they did was wrong, he says.

“There’s no seminar on the books in the world that is going to fix attitudes towards young women that these guys clearly had,” says McKee.

Hockey Canada, he says, instead needs to hold the whole team accountable for the actions of its players. This could be through sanctions, for example, which include team suspensions and collective punishment doled out by teams and Hockey Canada.

On a broader societal level, the case also highlights issues surrounding victim testimony and court procedures.

While Criminologist Voula Marinos also says the verdict shouldn’t negate issues concerning sexual violence and power imbalances within and outside of sport, there are explicit legal requirements to be met when trying a charge of sexual assault.

Marinos says the burden of proof is on the Crown, rather than the defence, to prove that the complainant, E.M., consented to the sexual acts.

“When it comes to the criminal process, it is about the evidence presented that leads to a legal determination based upon legal standards,” says Marinos. “It may be very difficult to remember that it is about evidence that is available and entered into a case.”

Marinos also notes that Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia, who tried the case, said while not all inconsistencies in a testimony mean a witness is lying, there was “cause for concern” about whether E.M.’s evidence was credible or reliable.

“Importantly, the judge stated that subjective and lived experiences may not objectively be the truth as the judge looked at a constellation of all of the evidence,” says Marinos. “The Crown did not meet its high criminal standard of proving the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Forensic Psychologist Angela Book says E.M.’s testimony reflects a number of behaviours related to people’s reactions in dangerous situations.

Self-silencing, for instance, is “not speaking one’s thoughts due to wanting to maintain harmony among others,” says the Professor of Psychology, while “judgmental self-doubt” involves distrusting one’s perception of a situation.

“We think those two tendencies, when combined, lead to capitulation, which is defined as the tendency to ignore, dismiss or downplay warning signs of danger and remain in a potentially dangerous situation,” she says.

Book is concluding research she conducted with Lakehead University Associate Professor Beth Visser (along with PhD students Theresia Bedard and Veronika Fendler-Janssen) on “self-silencing,” “judgmental self-doubt” and how they relate to reactions in dangerous situations.

She says early gender socialization has taught many women to suppress negative statements or fears to be nice, polite, compliant and not “rock the boat.”

There is also the “freeze” psychological and physiological response where a victim appears passive out of fear or avoiding further harm when in a traumatic situation, Book says.

Judging how a victim acts during a sexual assault can be misleading, she says, given these and other trauma responses.

It will be interesting to see what Hockey Canada decides to do in the months ahead.  The National Hockey League has already said the hockey players cannot return to the ice until the NHL has completed its review