Rick Westhead exposes rot in Canadian hockey culture in book “We Breed Lions”

“Hockey people don’t like outsiders knowing their business.”

Former Western Hockey League player Ryan Phillips said the above to investigative journalist Rick Westhead in his book “We Breed Lions; Confronting Canada’s Troubled Hockey Culture” to be released Tuesday by Penguin Random House Canada.

Westhead catalogues hockey’s commercialism and tribalist creed, as well as other cultural factors that led to the sexual assault trial of five players on a Canadian junior team who went on to play in the NHL. They were acquitted in July.

From 16-year-olds moving away from home to learn societal norms from teammates only a few years their senior, to minor hockey becoming the bastion of the financially privileged, to those in power who either abused it or turned away from those who did, Westhead backs up his research with a surprising number of players, agents and coaches speaking on record given Phillips’ assertion of hockey’s omertà.

“Junior hockey is rogue,” agent J.P. Barry is quoted as saying. “These teams are unaccountable to anyone. Junior hockey is all about profits and about helping the most elite kids. The teams don’t really care about the others. The whole system needs a kick in the nuts.”

Pointing out hockey’s problems is unpopular given the pedestal it’s on in Canada. The Four Nations Face-Off final between Canada and the United States in February drew 6.8 million Canadians to screens to watch it.

Holding two ideas at the same time, that hockey is a beautiful game that enriches people lives but also has rot, is a theme in Westhead’s book.

“This game is amazing. I play two, three times a week right now,” the author said. “I love hockey and I love what it’s done for me.

“My younger son had cancer and our hockey community was there for us all the way through dropping off food and with supportive gestures. 

“That can be true and it can also be true there are systemic issues within elite minor hockey and junior hockey that need to change. That’s hard for some people to reconcile.”

TSN’s senior correspondent has already been labelled as an outsider with an axe to grind by six-time Stanley Cup champion Kevin Lowe.

“Like many who take issue with the sport, I can’t help but wonder if he was cut from a team or didn’t get enough ice time when he played,” Lowe said on social media earlier this year.

But since Westhead broke the news May 26, 2022, that Hockey Canada had quietly settled a civil lawsuit with a woman who accused members of the national junior hockey team of sexually assaulting her in London, Ont., at a 2018 gala, he says he’s been inundated with messages from people about toxic experiences in the game.

In his book, Westhead unearthed jarring anecdotes symptomatic of larger issues.

An Ontario minor hockey coach tells of a parent offering a $25,000 bribe for his son to be team captain, a player remembers a WHL trainer who hung a “bitch” chart on the trainer’s room wall that listed girls each player had sex with, and another player recounts how he skipped school for a month before his major junior team did anything about it.

“We are instantly alpha males,” a former OHL player told Westhead. “Outside the team, no one says no to us, and within the team, we learn the rules of the jungle.

“This is our culture. We breed lions and how do you tell a lion to stop being a lion?”

Westhead balances hockey horror stories with agents of change in the game, and tells of cultural shifts some teams and hockey organizations have made.

“There is going to be pushback from people who maybe don’t want to take the time to read what they’ll find to be an uncomfortable read, but I would hope we’re at a time where people would say ‘I want to see what he’s got to say. Is this just a hatchet job?’ I don’t think it is,” Westhead said.

“The book lays out that there are people who are making efforts to affect a positive change and to help a next generation coming up to be the best versions of themselves.” 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 3, 2025.