International Ice Hockey Federation probing Hockey Canada over alleged sex assault – National

The Worldwide Ice Hockey Federation is investigating Hockey Canada’s dealing with of what the IIHF calls “deeply troubling” allegations of sexual assault towards gamers, together with some on the 2018 World Juniors championship crew.

The Zurich, Switzerland-based world governing physique for ice hockey mentioned it needs extra data amid a continued storm of criticism and condemnation that has rocked Hockey Canada to its core.

Affirmation of the probe, first reported on by The Athletic on Saturday, comes only one week earlier than the launch of the IIHF’s 2022 World Juniors championship, which has struggled to fill seats for the video games going down in Edmonton, Alta., amid the outcry from sponsors, politicians and oldsters.

“The IIHF was knowledgeable by Hockey Canada about this settlement in Could 2022 and has launched an inquiry to acquire extra data regarding the circumstances and Hockey Canada’s actions taken to handle them,” a spokesperson for the IIHF mentioned in an e-mail to International Information.

“These are deeply troubling incidents that the IIHF takes extraordinarily severely,” the group added.

“The IIHF will proceed to observe Hockey Canada’s actions, together with the reopened investigations, to make sure that it’s appearing in accordance with the IIHF Abuse and Harassment Code. The IIHF will take all applicable steps in step with the IIHF Abuse and Harassment Code when and if essential.”

The IIHF Abuse and Harassment Code states that the usual of proof in probes into potential violations of that code weigh the steadiness of possibilities, which is the authorized customary utilized in civil circumstances below Canadian regulation.

That customary is totally different than the evidentiary threshold in Canadian felony trials, which checks whether or not allegations might be confirmed past an inexpensive doubt.

If the IIHF determines a violation has taken place, its disciplinary board can lay any of the sanctions outlined in its disciplinary code towards both a person participant or the member nationwide affiliation, of which Hockey Canada is one.

These sanctions choices embody a warning, a reprimand, a tremendous, suspension from a specified variety of video games or for a specified time period, annulment of recreation outcomes, declaration of a recreation forfeit, deduction of the variety of factors awarded, disqualification from a contest in progress and/or exclusion from future competitions, prohibition of registering new gamers in IIHF Competitions; and withdrawal of title or award.”

Canadian police are investigating allegations of sexual assault made towards gamers from two World Junior championship groups: these in 2003 and 2018.

The previous is alleged to have taken place in RisePEI, N.S., and the latter in London, Ont.

A 2018 investigation by London police didn’t lead to any costs, however has since been reopened. After the unique investigation ended, the girl on the coronary heart of the allegations filed a civil lawsuit and Hockey Canada settled that earlier this yr.

There’s a non-disclosure settlement in place in that settlement, Sports activities Minister Pascale St-Onge has mentioned.

The Nationwide Hockey League is probing the 2018 allegation as nicely, and Hockey Canada has reopened a commissioned exterior probe by regulation agency Henein Hutchison into the 2018 allegations, which embody eight gamers together with members of its World Junior crew that yr.

One participant from the 2018 World Juniors crew, Victor Mete, recently took to Twitter to name the allegations “appalling,” including he was not concerned. For the reason that eight alleged perpetrators haven’t been recognized, he wrote, “the incident has left an unlucky cloud over each participant who was on the Canadian crew.”

International Information reached out to the brokers for all gamers who had been on the roster on the time of the alleged incident. A number of gamers have since launched public statements denying their involvement.

Learn the total listing of responses from the crew on this submit on globalnews.ca.