I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospect. I'm Sean McAndu from The Athletic. And well we finally have

our news on the hockey Canada players. five players have apparently officially been charged for a sexual assault and if you don't want to hear us talk about that, you know, for whatever reason, you can skip ahead.

We'll put a time stamp or something when you can jump back in in the episode description.

But yeah, obviously we got to talk about this. So what

happened was I think it was over the weekend or maybe on Monday. Alex Forminton officially surrendered to the London police issued a statement through his lawyer that he will vigorously defend the charges and all that kind of stuff.

Then yesterday, Rick West had over a T.S.N.

reported that the other four players would be charged. That happened a few hours

later. Those players are Carter Hart, Dylan Dubay, Michael McCloud, and Cal

Foote. And all their lawyers also issued a statement within a few hours of that initial

report saying that they had indeed been charged

would you know would fight the charges profess their innocence all that kind of stuff so.

Yeah so no surprises here relative to where we were last week the last time we recorded we knew that charges were coming.

We knew that several players from that team were taking leaves of absence,

but we did not know anything officially.

Now we do and now the process the legal process begins in earnest and could go for quite a while.

Unfortunately for anyone hoping for a quick and decisive resolution here. Yeah, the report again from Rick Westhead yesterday was that due to backlogs in the Ontario court system,

this case might not be tried until 2026, which is a very long time from now.

Yeah.

Especially given that we're into year six since the alleged assault took place.

So now I guess... alleged assault took place.

So now I guess in theory the the eyes turn towards the NHL

who have not Formally or officially done anything with this situation yet other than claim to be investigating it.

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