Allegations of abuse have plagued ice hockey in Canada for some time but there seems to have been little urgency about addressing the issue until now
“Our board frankly does not share the view that senior leadership should be replaced on the basis of what we consider to be substantial misinformation and unduly cynical attacks,” then-interim Hockey Canada board chair Andrea Skinner told parliamentarians last Tuesday – just days before her own resignation, and exactly a week before the organization’s CEO and entire board of directors stepped down. “I appreciate that others disagree with us, but our positions are based on the information that we have and understanding that Hockey Canada has an excellent reputation.”
What new information arose between Skinner’s statement and the mass resignations a week later? In the wake of Skinner’s testimony, multiple corporate sponsors, including Nike, Bauer, and Tim Horton’s walked away from Hockey Canada’s men’s program. Multiple provincial hockey governing bodies did, too. And the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, suggested that perhaps the federal government, from which Hockey Canada receives significant annual funding to oversee the sport at a minor level across Canada, ought to simply create a new body to do the job. All that was indeed technically new.
