Warning, this podcast contains descriptions of sexual abuse and may not be suitable for all audiences.

Joining us for the studio, in the studio for the first time, Rick Westhead, Rick, you know, it's funny, we all maintain text message conversations outside of being on the air, so, you know, I want everybody watching this, that we don't, to know that we don't always meet under these circumstances. It's great to see you. It's great to have you here, but this is going to be a tough conversation.

I guess a lot of what I do include Rick and I look closer, a lot of what I do involves tough conversations, but important ones, I think.

Absolutely, absolutely. So today, we're going to talk about what Rick knows about the hockey candidate situation that's been unfolding. Jesse and Steve, I was sick for this episode, but Jesse and Steve did a full episode about it.

Rick, I want to start from the very, very beginning, because I want the context to really matter here. So what have you reported thus far? What was the event that I guess happened?

So it was interesting. I was actually over in Europe, and I got a tip that I needed to go to London, Ontario and pull a lawsuit that had not been reported on.

And I was working on some soccer reporting at the time, and didn't have the ability to get in person to London, tried to call the courthouse, and I guess because of COVID and everything else, it was really difficult to find anyone.

So managed through some connections to get a source at the Ministry of the Attorney General to find somebody in London to work with me. And over the course of days, finally connected with somebody who had a copy of that statement of claim and was able to get it to me.

So I'm over in Europe, and I'm reading this lawsuit for the first time, and I'm thinking, oh, my God. And for people who haven't followed the case at all, this was a lawsuit that was filed in April of this year by a woman who is not identified in this court document.

And it's a lawsuit against Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League, and eight Canadian Hockey League players who are referred to as John Doe's one through eight in the statement of claim.

And she alleges that in June 2018, following a Hockey Canada gala and golf tournament event in London, Ontario, that she returned to a hotel room with one of the players, who's one of the John Doe's,

and had consensual sex with him. And after that, he allowed into the room, seven other players, and that over the span of hours that she was repeatedly sexually assaulted.

And when the attacks were over, that she was directed to have a shower, to be on video saying that she was sober.

And she alleges that she was pressured not to tell anyone about this, and that if police did question her, she was pressured not to cooperate with an investigation.

That's all in the statement of claim. And so, you know, I contacted my colleagues at TSN, and it started reporting on it. And that was the difficult process, you know, Hockey Canada.

I'm sure I wanted to make connections with its partners and let them know what was likely coming, the Canadian Hockey League as well.

The H. John Doe's had no idea which players were involved with this. And after a period of time, a lawyer representing the woman in this case told me that she was not interested in speaking publicly about it, but that the case had just been settled.

Remember, this was only filed in April. And that doesn't normally happen for anybody that's never been through that process usually takes months.

So it was filed in April 2022 and completed settled weeks later.

Settled weeks later.

Yeah, the caveat here is, you know, the federation had known about this for years, right? And so this would not have come as a surprise to anyone Hockey Canada, the allegations that were being made.

But we can get to it in a minute when the government of Canada, when members of parliament read about this and pursued accountability, that's when things got really interesting.

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