Suspension upheld for teen hockey player involved in hazing

A high school hockey player who was found to have been involved in sexualized hazing of rookie teammates lost his suspension appeal.

The youth player was barred from Hockey Canada-sanctioned activities. He was handed the four-year and nine-month suspension from sanctioned hockey after an interim ban issued in March 2024.

He appealed his suspension late last year to the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada, an independent conflict tribunal, but the centre upheld the youth’s suspension, according to a written decision issued earlier this year.

An independent investigator who probed the hockey player’s actions described the youth as a veteran player who both participated in and co-ordinated the “assigning” of rookie team members to veteran players to perform tasks for them. He himself was “assigned” a rookie, the decision said.

He “participated” in spanking rookie players who did not perform tasks as requested, and at an unspecified tournament, he co-ordinated an initiation process for rookies in which they were spanked.

“(The) event involved players being made to take their pants down, lie on a bed in a hotel room, and be spanked by veterans,” reads the decision, written by arbitrator Jeffrey Palamar, a Winnipeg lawyer.

The player was also “implicated in the purchase of a ‘sex kit,’” during another tournament, and was found to have shown off the kit during a bus ride. Multiple players told the independent investigator the youth either participated in or led the hazing of rookies using the kit — which included a whip or paddle, blindfold and handcuffs — in a team hotel room.

He was also said to have threatened violence against rookie players and to have posted images of the hazing online, the decision said.

Hockey Manitoba, the governing body for the amateur sport in the province, submitted a complaint about the player’s misconduct to Hockey Canada in May 2024, after it had already suspended the youth.

Hockey Canada turned over the complaint to an independent body it commissions to look into allegations of misconduct.

After an investigation, an adjudicator suspended the youth from all Hockey Canada-sanctioned events for another three years last December, meaning he could not even watch games in person until the end of 2028.

The adjudicator had considered banning him from such events for life.

The youth appealed the adjudicator’s decision, arguing it did not take into account the length of his interim suspension, his age when he participated in the hazing, and what he had done to better himself via restorative programming at school.

He suggested his suspension should be ended in either June or August this year.

But the arbitrator rejected the youth’s proposal, saying the suspension was fair, given the youth’s “very significant” misconduct.

The youth is not identified in the decision, nor is the team for which he played.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca