This might be the worst possible example (See China).

I don’t want to speak on behalf of beterchiarelli but you may find these two articles informative.

Katie Strang

E.M., the woman who filed a lawsuit against Hockey Canada over an alleged group sexual assault by some members of Canada’s world junior hockey team in 2018, says that she has felt “vulnerable and exposed” since news of her allegations became public in May. https://t.co/M6dR4ySOr1

— Robyn Doolittle (@robyndoolittle) August 2, 2022

Make your decisions yourself

Two political activists playing journalist to try to influence the outcome of something that was a closed case is proof of why this is such a sham

Political activists lol, they are journalists, you know that right?

Not enough information for anyone to make a decision. It is one side of the story. And it is largely based upon one (inadmissible) piece of evidence.

There would need to be full discovery (collecting evidence), cross examination (interviewing participants) following normal standards of due process.

Almost all that is known today was known to police years ago when they decided not to pursue a criminal case. So what has changed? Unfortunately, most people decided guilt or innocence within days of hearing about it and only hearing one side of the story.

Anyone that remembers the Duke Lacrosse case from mid 2000s should be cautious about judging guilt or innocence. Back then, everyone assumed guilt. The accused did not speak. They got their day in court and proved their innocence. It is one of the more famous cases like this, but it is unfortunately a very common flaw in a society undergoing large scale cultural correction. We become hardwired to affix our views to specific cases and sometimes the facts don’t turn out to be what we want them to be.

Best to reserve judgement. Presume innocence. Demand truth.

Totally entitled to your own opinion. If that’s what you concluded from it.

This story has become larger than just this case for Hockey Canada.

My opinion is not having an opinion. Way too early to make any judgement.

I mean the answer to your question is in my response: one can intuit that something is amiss based on what we've seen: this case was presumably settled but it's been reopened. Why?There are players involved with the 2018 team that still haven't come out and denied involvement. A game of lawyer is afoot. Why? Clearly if we are to presume innocence then it's in every player's best interest to absolve themselves from the incident. Unless they're lying.

Things like the chair stepping down, public outcry, and the House of Commons seeking answers are ultimately auxiliary to the actual happenings of the case itself. These cannot be inherently used in a similar train of thought.

I do like to think this is rational thought. Worries about the cancelation of games is less so.

I very much appreciate the criticism though, and it's very much warranted. I was borderline unhinged in that early argument (an initial inability to separate a personal connection to the case I suppose). I'm in a bit of a bind in regards to it: I want to leave it up as a means of not hiding behind my ability to moderate and delete posts, to own my mistakes and admit where I've learned and/or been able to step back from the ledge. At the same time I look like a complete ass the longer it stays up. I'll continue to live with those consequences I reckon. I never really meant to dictate this conversation and regret that's ultimately what happened until I stepped away from it.

Completely forgot about the China thing I'm favour of tunnel vision for more local social movements. Thanks for pointing that out.

fwiw Would like to just mention that this is very big of you Beter, a lesser person would not have responded like this.
I'm honestly not sure I would have kept my ego and emotions in check if it were me.
My estimation of the moderatorship on CapFriendly just increased by quite a bit.

We have the most far left media in the English speaking world. This is all motivated by social and political activism from the left. This entire thing was dragged back up after the money was paid. Now we have an open case that was closed before. These people saw a chance to drag this back into the spotlight for their own reasons. Why do you think we have all these “investigative” sports journalists? They’ve only been around very recently. For decades we had sports basically separated from politics. Now they are one in the same.

“this case was presumably settled but it's been reopened. Why?“ Because once money was paid out for the settlement our incredibly biased media ran with this and pushed it into the public eye to jin up controversy and get the politicians involved. That’s very obvious.

And as far as your role as a moderator goes, you have an obligation to allow people you disagree with to speak freely as long as they are following the rules. That’s what every person who moderates anything must do. It’s fine that you have your own biases as you are human like everyone else. I am much happier when people put their cards on the table and don’t pretend to be impartial. We all must tolerate each other though. That’s the point of living in a free society.

I’m glad he said what he said as well. Nothing is worse than a moderator who pretends they have no bias. All humans have a bias. Free society is based entirely on tolerating bias.

It is an emotional topic and your response was not unlike many of ours. But I think the fair route is to reserve judgement, even if (especially if) that runs counter to our feelings.

There were 9+ defendants on the civil case that settled. It could have been one bad egg that spoiled the lot. It could have been all of them. It could have been just an economic decision, or one to avoid negative publicity, or one to avoid discovery process. We don't know.

A non-denial does not mean guilt. I imagine everyone involved is getting different legal advice. And its possible that part of the settlement could have involved an agreement not to comment publicly on the case (ie, a "gag order"), which is common. There are a not of reasons someone might not comment.

Also, it really is a difficult topic. But important to know that there is a very wide range of standards involved around these issues. There are those used for criminal behavior, others used for civil complaints, others for personal conduct policy with NHL. Private organizations and institutions may adopt broad rules around personal conduct or more narrow standards, using "affirmative consent" or "revoked consent" that cannot be applied to criminal laws (as they are written today). And then there are the cultural standards that society expects, not just for those involved, but for anyone involved of the case at all.

The accused could have crossed a line on the cultural standards, but not be open to civil or criminal problems. Or they could have broken personal conduct policies, but not have committed a crime. Again, we don't know enough to make a judgement. These are rarely as black and white as we want them to be.

No sports journalist does investigate journalism, however, if someone comes to them or they discover a story related to hockey, they will tell it, Rick Westhead did an amazing job with the Chicago and Kyle Beach affair, etc, there is a tight line to walk, especially in this case, to dismiss the claims of sexual assault would be to continue to perpetuate the problem of not believing women when they come out however you can’t exactly just believe her blindly because then you’d be presuming what’s happened before knowing, you kind of have to believe both sides at 50% ( which is super contradictory )

Why is a criminal case that was closed now reopened? There is no new evidence. All that has changed is these “journalists” broke their big story and now the politicians did what they do best, insert themselves into a manufactured scandal.

I mean, it’s literally been reported that there’s been at least a couple sexual allegations on players per year brought up to Hockey Canada and it won’t stop, do you seriously expect people not to get involved when they learn such a big culture problem in an organization?

Why is a case that was closed reopened when we have no new evidence?

1) thinking canadian media is "far left" is comical. we're a milquetoast liberal country.
2) this is motivated by seeing actual change in an organization in charge of a sport heavily tied to our culture.
3) the case was reopened because it there almost certainly wasn't enough evidence to go forward with the initial investigation - mainly because the victim in the case didn't talk to the police. this is common theme in cases of sexual assault in situations where the accused is of public notary - where the victim fears for their safety and well being on speaking out, which makes a very difficult situation to investigate much harder.
4) the fact that hockey canada has been settling cases like this nearly once a year since 1989 is....very worrying.
5) investigative journalism into sports is a great thing
6) sports and politics are intrinsically linked. your profile picture is from an international tournament and was one of the few times players from canada and players from the ussr ever competed. believing there were no political stakes in this tournaments is laughable. you also have support for a conservative pm in your flair. wouldn't recommend complaining about sports and politics being "one in the same" where you're being openly political on a sports website.

the person bringing the allegations forward chose not to speak with either police or with Hockey Canada’s independent investigator and also chose not to identify the players involved. This was her right and we fully respect her wishes.”

That’s what was reported at first. Now her lawyer contradicts it here:

But this wasn’t true, Mr. Talach said. E.M. co-operated back in 2018 and she continues to co-operate today, he said. (Hockey Canada corrected its statement about police after being contacted by Mr. Talach.)

So it sure sounds like she talked to the police afterwards. Therefore, there is no new evidence. They had her side of the story yet the case was still initially closed and not reopened until the media blew this up into a national peeing contest. Therefore, we can logically conclude their has been reopened because media and the politicians got involved

I think, at least somewhat logically, this rebuttal leads us to the following question:

Is it inherently wrong that the public and government "got ahold" of this case?

If the issue ultimately resides with the court of public opinion and the large majority of that public (potentially inappropriately) reaching for a guilty verdict, what is the ultimate solution? Public fees for registration have been used as a means for paying for the settlements of similar cases. There had been zero accountability, unsurprisingly, from Hockey Canada until there was a public and political outcry. I do not fundamentally believe that, just from the lens of these two root issues - the slush fund and lack of accountability - that it's inherently wrong that the court of public opinion has so overwhelmingly focused on this case and the others brought to light during any investigations. Canadians as a whole have been lied to.

As with any high-profile case, a large portion of the populous will get the outcome wrong but I would never go as far to suggest that the public or the government should be looked at as the villains in this case. This outcry is affecting change one way or another: through an emotional reaction, perhaps even ideological reaction, social realpolitik has/will win the day and Hockey Canada (or whatever entity replaces it) is better off for it.

You're making conjecture on something you absolutely do not know about. You can co-operate with the investigation without naming the players which is what the police were definitely looking at. We don't know what exactly the police invested in 2018-2019, why they initially closed the case, and what has transpired since to have them re-open it.

Not going to deny that public pressure is the major reason why this is under the microscope now, but this is largely in part because Hockey Canada needs to regain favour with the public, the government and their sponsors. Hockey Canada has let incidents like this be kept under the rug for nearly 30-40 years now and has been treating sexual assault allegations as some misstep instead of a glaring deficiency in our country's youth hockey culture. The reason this case and Hockey Canada's handling of it is in the spotlight is because the public wants them to do better, in both having our youth players learn how these things are absolutely not okay and the organization in fully investigating and levying proper consequence on those who should be punished.

As someone whose played youth hockey in this country you should be furious about how Hockey Canada has been handling this instead of blaming reporters and the government.

I personally am ticked off at HC as most everyone is and I know they’re corrupt and have known that for years to be honest on things completely unrelated to this. I do get where he’s coming from as far as distrust of the media and the government. They’re opportunistic leaches that will use this scandal to their own advantages.

The witch hunt mentality around issues like racism or sexism is extremely worrying to me. We all know when a male with some semblance of power is accused of a sex crime there’s a large segment of the country that will vote them as guilty as soon as they hear it. Many people are inherently jealous of someone who has more power than they have. It’s why we enjoy the downfall of celebrities and politicians we don’t like. It’s a sick and twisted part of humans as well to root on the failure of someone or something. “He’s rich therefore he should pay x amount more in taxes” is one of the most common ways this plays out. With sports it’s easy to see it and in this particular scandal it’s very easy to assume the woman is a victim and the players are bad guys. It’s almost a given to so many people and even when we see a court case like Jake Virtanen’s find a not guilty verdict that’s still not good enough, the outrage must go on.

I mentioned it in this thread earlier but I played with one of the 2003 team. I’ve seen his name dragged through the mud because one small quote was taken completely out of context. Now we have keyboard warriors declaring him and others rapists. I get it the internet is about as low as we humans go because people can hide behind a screen and say horrible crap to each other but it doesn’t sit well with me. I guess I’m old school and just believe you’re innocent until your not and when a court speaks that’s the end of the story

“You're making conjecture on something you absolutely do not know about. “

Aren’t we all? Unless you’re involved directly with the London Police I’m going to say you too are going off your own opinions.

“Hockey Canada has let incidents like this be kept under the rug for nearly 30-40 years now and has been treating sexual assault allegations as some misstep instead of a glaring deficiency in our country's youth hockey culture. “

I can’t point to any one thing that caused this change in how sexual assault and/or harassment allegations are handled by society but I can explain why these things weren’t aired out in front of the whole public until rather recently. Before the introduction of 24 hours news cycles and the internet, we were not conditioned to be the need to know everything as soon as possible society we are now.

What I’m saying is 30 or more years ago we weren’t out to air everyone’s dirty laundry or have investigations aired to the whole world in real time. I see that as a benefit because the police in particular were able to conduct an investigation into serious allegations without the current hysteria and cancel culture attitude we have now. I am sure critics (and I’m guessing you’ll agree with them) will say that the way this is handled today is better but all it does os prejudge the accused. While there are certainly people who want nothing but the facts, there are many people in Canada who have a vested interest in this scandal for reasons well beyond getting the facts of what happened. You already noted the infusion of politics and sports so you’ll not be shocked to hear that I believe most people pushing the narrative that the woman is to be believed without question are doing that because they have social reengineering of our society and culture at the forefront of this. That means it not the truth or justice that’s driving this, it’s a chance to use this to advance any number of goals that groups on the left have. There you have it the inescapable truth that this is neck deep in politics.

Hockey Quebec has officially cut ties with Hockey Canada. I presume this means that QMJHL players aren't going to be tied to any of the WJC's this year until another governing body takes the helm.