Bettman says NHL’s investigation into allegations complete but will wait for court process to play out

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NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman speaks with the media on February 02, 2024 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman said the league’s investigation into allegations that members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team sexually assaulted a woman in a hotel is complete, but given impending criminal charges against five players, the most “responsible and prudent” thing to do is to wait for the court process to play out.

Mr. Bettman said the investigative stage of the probe was completed in 2023, but the league has not released its findings because it has been processing the work by the investigative team. Mr. Bettman called the allegations “abhorrent” and “reprehensible.”

The commissioner also said he found no reason to suspend the players for the rest of the season. The four players from the NHL who have been charged have taken leaves of absences from their teams, and they are all free agents at the end of the season.

They have all been paid the bulk of their salaries for the season, he said, but confirmed they are still being paid despite the charges.

Friday marked the first time Mr. Bettman has publicly answered questions about the five members of the 2018 team who were criminally charged earlier this week in London, Ont. – the city where the alleged group sexual assault occurred more than five years ago.

Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Carter Hart, Cal Foote and Alex Formenton – all current or former NHL players – were each charged with one count of sexual assault, with Mr. McLeod facing an additional offence of being a party to sexual assault. Each player has denied wrongdoing and promised to vigorously defend themselves.

The five men have been accused of sexually assaulting a woman, identified in court documents as E.M., in London’s Delta Armouries Hotel in the early morning hours of June 19, 2018. The players were in town for a Hockey Canada fundraising event, in which they were honoured for their gold-medal win at the world champions several months earlier.

E.M. reported the alleged attack to police immediately, but an initial investigation was closed without charges in February 2019. The incident didn’t become public for another three years. In April 2022 E.M. filed a $3.55-million lawsuit against Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) and eight players that were not identified by name in her claim. A month later, TSN reported that Hockey Canada had settled the lawsuit.

In June 2022, in one of Mr. Bettman’s first public statements about the allegations, he told reporters the league only became aware of the incident after learning about the lawsuit. He also said the league had launched an internal investigation and that he expected the NHL to release the results of that probe when it was complete. He cautioned that the NHL might be prohibited from releasing certain information, depending on how it was accessed, but said “in the ordinary course we try to be transparent.”

But over the last year and a half, the NHL has closely guarded any information about its investigation, including the scope, its status and who is leading the probe.

Early on, the league announced that Jared Maples, the NHL’s senior executive vice-president and chief security officer, would be in charge of the investigation. But on Friday, The Globe reported that not long into the probe, the NHL shifted tactics.

The league hired Camille Olson, a prominent American labour and employment lawyer, who in 2021 was in 2021 was recognized by the National Law Journal as one of the United States’ “trailblazers” in crisis management.

Ms. Olson began contacting individuals involved in the incident and identifying herself as acting in the NHL investigation. Over the ensuing months, Ms. Olson made contact with E.M. and all 22 members of the junior team. The players were interviewed mostly in person, although a handful had to be done remotely. Those interviews, which were also attended by criminal lawyers, took place in various cities.

At a press conference Friday, Mr. Bettman said E.M. did not speak with the NHL’s investigators, which he described as a decision was her right to make.

As of mid-December 2022, Mr. Bettman said that the probe was in the “home stretch” – a claim he has repeated multiple times since.

The league has so far refused to comment on the London police charges and its impact, if any, on the NHL’s probe.

This story is developing.