Rick Westhead on the difficult truth about abuse in youth hockey
Rick Westhead nearly missed one of the most important phone calls of his career.
The investigative journalist was in Europe shooting a documentary for sports broadcaster TSN. As repeated calls came in from an unknown number, he was too busy to answer.
Eventually, he picked up.
The voice on the other end told him he needed to pull a court file in London, Ont. It contained allegations from a woman claiming she was sexually abused. “This will change hockey. It may change our country,” said the whistleblower.
That call led Westhead to a case that all Canadians would come to know about, one that seized the country’s attention for more than two years: five Canada World Junior players, aged 18 to 20 at the time, stood accused of having sexually assaulted a young woman at a London hotel in June 2018.
The players would be acquitted of their charges by Ontario’s Superior Court. But the case and its fallout prompted a wider national discussion about the culture of Canada’s game, and about repeated incidents of hazing and alleged sexual offences within the sport.
On Jan. 29, Westhead sat down for a one-on-one interview with Investigative Journalism Bureau director Robert Cribb to share the story behind his new best-selling book We Breed Lions. (Watch the full interview in the video above.)
The event — the inaugural IJB Press Club event hosted by Postmedia, which invites prominent journalists and newsmakers to sit down for in-depth interviews on matters of vital public importance — drew parents, hockey players, journalists and members of the public into a difficult conversation about the dark corners of youth hockey, how we got here, and the path forward.
“I know that it (the book) is leading to conversations that are making children safer in Canada,” Westhead told the crowd.
Reporting on repeated allegations of abuse within Canada’s favourite game wasn’t easy. As a hockey fan, Westhead had to question the game he loves.
But two things can be true at the same time, the reporter said.
“We can have a game that is amazing and I think hockey is the best game in the world, but it can also be true that a sport can have systemic issues.”
In his best-seller, he highlights a string of proven and alleged sexual assaults, abuse, and hazing within Canadian junior hockey, and the systemic issues that allow such behaviour to persist.
One major issue, he says, is coaches and parents tolerating the conduct of young players who often act without regard for consequences.
The book cites Larissa Mills, a cognitive behavioural coach who works with young hockey players who, she says, are becoming “egotistical adults with no boundaries or social etiquette” due to a lack of disciplinary action from the game’s authorities.
“The kids don’t fear anyone,” Mills says. “They don’t fear their coaches or their parents. It’s scary. I’m worried about our young children’s development today…. We wind up making excuses for so many kids who have this cocky bravado, who hurt people around them.”
In total, Westhead interviewed nearly 60 elite hockey players to better understand the underlying culture that normalizes such behaviour.
One former Ontario Hockey League player confided in him that he learned, at a young age, that the team will always come first.
“We are expected to have each other’s back, to lie for each other if we have to. Civilians wouldn’t understand it…. This is our culture. We breed lions, and how do you tell a lion to stop being a lion?“
Westhead knows his reporting has upset many hockey lovers.
Well-known players criticized him for “tearing down the game,” and some even accused him of acting out of spite because he himself never had a professional hockey career.
But others, like former NHL player Sheldon Kennedy, have celebrated Westhead’s relentless reporting.
As a young player, Kennedy endured years of sexual abuse by a former coach.
His shocking 1996 confession encouraged other players to come forward with their own stories of abuse. (The coach, Graham James, was convicted of sexual abuse involving multiple young boys.)
During the event, Cribb asked Westhead how the book might have created problems for fellow sports reporters who rely on exclusive access to teams and athletes to do their jobs.
But Westhead said he has found support among his peers.
“There has been no one who’s been like, you know, we’re going to get you,” he said.
It is the responsibility of journalists to shine light on harsh realities and hold powerful organizations accountable, he added.
Without the support of TSN editors, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to chase these stories. Not all reporters have the privilege to do so, Westhead said.
Westhead says that despite their acquittals, the players who were charged in the London case have nonetheless faced significant resulting issues.
“They, for years now, have had their names and their pictures on the internet, on social media every day. They’ve lost their livelihoods at least for a period of time…. They have had to explain to their families their roles in this. And, one day … they’re going to have to explain to their kids.”
Since publishing his stories, Westhead says more and more people have come to him sharing their own stories on alleged claims of sexual assault.
Stressing the need for more conversations on consent, he says new programs are emerging to foster better behaviour among young hockey players. The author attended those sessions, and says he watched 12-year-old boys lead some of the conversations.
“Maybe the redemption story for hockey is that coming out of all of this … we are helping these boys become the best versions of themselves and leaders and protectors, not just of women, but of people who are racialized, people who are LGBTQ+, people who are vulnerable.”
The Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health is a collaborative investigative newsroom supported by Postmedia that partners with academics, researchers and journalists while training the next generation of investigative reporters.
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