Four of the ‘Hockey Canada Five’ signed mere months after the conclusion of their sexual assault trial
Photo via the Globe and Mail.
On Oct. 24, 2025, the Vegas Golden Knights signed Canadian goalie Carter Hart to a two year, $4 million contract. More recently, the Chicago Wolves signed Canadian defenseman Cal Foote.
These signing came as disappointing, yet unsurprising, to many followers of the National Hockey League (NHL), including myself, in light of the sexual assault allegations made against Hart, Foote, and three other professional players, which were the subject of a trial earlier this year.
In January of 2024, Hart and Foote, alongside Dillon Dubé, Alex Formenton, and Michael McLeod were charged with sexual assault following their alleged conduct with a women known as E.M in a London, Ontario hotel in June 2018, following their win at the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Juniors championship.
A lengthy trial was held in May 2025, with a final verdict decided in July, deeming all five not guilty. As of Dec. 1 2025, all five players have become eligible to return to professional play in the NHL.Foote and Hart are not the only players of the five to be signed. In fact, with the exception of Dubé, they all have — Formenton was signed by the Swiss team HC Ambri-Priotta in September, and McLeod signed a multi-year contract, returning to the Russian team Avangard-Omsk, in October.
The day I found out these five men were allowed to walk free, my stomach dropped. It was a crushing day for survivors of sexual assault all over the country, for hockey fans, and for women. Through everything, I’d hoped to see a positive result, from a justice system that honors and believes victims. Instead, I saw a legal process that reinforced the same harmful stereotypes and ideas about victims, and let the accused walk away without further consequences.
In hindsight, I may have been naive for ever assuming that a country that views hockey as such a sacred sport could ever actually convict five of their players who brought home the gold medal in 2018.
In Canada, the young men bearing our nation’s flag on their chest whilst playing our national game are seen as heroes. They are often worshipped as young gods, who walk above us mere mortals. But hockey culture, particularly male hockey culture, is a darker world than many of us would like to admit. Misogyny is a major issue in hockey locker rooms. Sometimes, this misogyny presents itself less as traditional sexism, and more as an obsessive oversexualization of women.
Starting in the early 2000s, a digital “playbook” was circulated amongst many Canadian junior hockey locker rooms, referred to as The Junior Hockey Bible. The document was full of degrading sexual acts, and spoke about women in a disgusting and dehumanizing manner. This culture, where women are seen as conquests — points on a scoreboard in another competitive game — has been brewing in locker rooms for years.
There is an unsettling history in this country of hockey players facing major sexual misconduct allegations, only to be let off with a slap on the wrist — a truth that undoubtedly adds fuel to the fire of misogyny within hockey teams. Players have likely come to expect that there will be few consequences for treating the women around them as disposable.
The Fifth Estate reported in 2022 that there have been 15 cases of group sexual assault cases in Canada involving members of junior hockey teams since 1989. Given how many cases of sexual assault go unreported in Canada, that number is likely much, much higher.
In 10 of these cases, at least one player was charged, only to have those charges eventually dropped. While being charged, many of these players were still allowed to play for their teams.
In 1989, Brian Sakic of the Swift Current Broncos was charged with sexual assault. Though those charges were later dropped, Sakic was almost immediately drafted to the Washington Capitals. This scenario reads eerily similarly to what happened with Hart — being accused of sexual assault, facing no repercussions, and being signed to the Vegas Golden Knights within the year.
In 2022, CBC also reported that Hockey Canada spent $2.9 million in player registration fees to pay for various settlements, including the $3.5 million lawsuit brought by E.M., prompting serious backlash.
Seeing these kinds of decisions from franchises is worrisome, not only for the survivors of the sexual assaults, but also for the hundreds of boys and young men that are watching this happen. What happened in that hotel room is not, I believe, an isolated event, but a byproduct of the locker room culture in boys hockey — a culture that I believe will only worsen as a result of this ruling.
After seeing these signings, and the lack of serious repercussions beyond brief suspensions from the league and reputational damage, I worry deeply for the future hockey stars of our country. Vegas and Chicago signing Hart and Foote sends a very clear message to these young men: we don’t care what you’ve been accused of, or what you’ve done. We only care how good you are — as long as you’re a good player, you can get away with anything.
Beyond the recent signing, the ruling of this case feels ominous for survivors. Throughout the grueling nine days in which E. M. was cross examined by all five defence lawyers, the defence’s line of questioning ranged from patronizing to victim blaming. In one instance, a defence lawyer cut off E.M as she gave a statement, interjecting that she must have felt shame and embarrassment for the choices she made that night. The defence argued that E. M. wasn’t as drunk as she claimed, that she fabricated the assault as a way to save her relationship with her boyfriend, and went as far as to bring in a model of the heels that she had been wearing that night.
This type of questioning only perpetuates dangerous stereotypes about sexual assault victims by reinforcing myths about how victims should behave, particularly that if a victim doesn’t fight back, actively say no, or even plays into what is happening for their own safety, then the sexual activity was consensual.
I fear these myths and preconceptions about victims will be furthered as a result of the trial’s outcome, at the expense of real justice and accountability for perpetrators.
I also fear that the results of this case will only deter more survivors from reporting their experiences. There are already a great deal of sexual assault cases that go unreported, in many cases due to the type of victim blaming that E.M faced in court — blaming that pushes the stereotype that if a woman is dressed a certain way, drinking too much, or not actively fighting back, then surely she must have asked for what happened to her.
In reality, sexual assault and a victim’s reaction to it never follows a script, and there are more responses than the “fight or flight” response we’ve been taught is normal. A woman freezing or fawning should not mean that her credibility is thrown into question.
As a woman, a hockey fan, and a hockey player myself, the ruling of the Hockey Canada trial hurts. It likely will for a long time. It’s easy to feel powerless in facing the culture that led to this incident, and the likely fallout that will be created by seriously challenging it. Yet we must keep fighting. Listen to survivors, and don’t let this case, or similar cases, be swept under the rug.
