The environment and culture, largely defined by the ice hockey omerta in Canada, is not healthy, recalled former women’s national team head coach Danièle Sauvageau.
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In addition, the measures put in place to counteract problematic behavior or to support victims “are not integrated and are not followed,” she stressed on the set of the show Le monde à l’envers on Friday evening.
To get redress, victims must sue their attackers individually. “For technical reasons, the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) consists of three separate leagues, and legally, the attorneys have chosen to sue the CHL, which is not necessarily a single entity. So we invite [les victimes] prosecuted individually,” she told Stéphan Bureau, returning to the dismissal of a class action lawsuit filed by victims of degrading initiations during their hockey career.
With Camille Thériault and Sheldon Kennedy, the ex-coach and former police officer was commissioned by the LCH in 2020 to investigate unhealthy behavior and the measures taken among young ice hockey players.
The rather disturbing report, which was shelved and then re-emerged in the news this week following fresh reports of assault, harassment and intimidation, reveals a significant percentage of people associated with junior hockey who believe the problem exists within the CHL, but have preferred to remain silent.
“We as adults have to make sure that the environment is healthy […] We have to keep monitoring it so it doesn’t happen again,” argued Danièle Sauvageau, stressing that the coaches and any authority figure who closed their eyes have contributed and exacerbated the problem.
The show Le monde à l’envers is shown live on TVA every Friday.