Five hockey players, from the team Canada 2018 team, were found not guilty, yesterday, from sexual assault charges. This happened after Hockey Canada settled a lawsuit with the woman involved in the incident for 3 1/2 million dollars. The lawsuit was settled in 2022.

The incident happened at a party at a London Ontario Hotel on June 18, 2018. Team Canada had won the gold medal at the world, junior hockey championships, back in January of that year. Charges were brought against the five. Following an eight month investigation the charges were dropped in 2019. This was all done quietly. A lawsuit by the woman was launched in 2022 and was settled with the woman getting a $3.55 million settlement. The hockey players themselves did not participate in the lawsuit and never had a chance to defend themselves. Hockey Canada lost a lot of sponsors during this time.

The hockey players have not been able to play in the NHL since. The players and the woman are in their mid 20s now.

This is a situation where everybody loses and where half the population of Canada is questioning the justice system. We are in an era of Jeffrey Epstein and Stormy Daniels. We are in an era where the president of the United States has had a number of women claiming to be sexually assaulted by him. E. Jean Carroll, will receive close to $100 million from Trump relating to a sexual assault (which Trump claims never happened), incident that occurred in the 1990s. yet with all this, Trump was elected president, again.

The woman, only known as E.M. went through nine days on the witness stand. Even though she won the civil lawsuit, she felt compelled to pursue sexual assault charges on the five. All the sordid details, of what occurred that night, came out at the trial.

The five were acquitted. But half their hockey playing career is gone. They will always be known as the five guys who committed sexual acts and recorded it on video, that night. They will have to live with that. Apparently a couple of them had girlfriends at the time, too.

The woman will always be known, to those that know her, as a woman who had sexual activity with five guys in one night.

The Crown will appeal the decision. The NHL, even after the acquittal, yesterday, still has to decide whether or not to remove the suspension on the five. This whole thing is not going away yet. It leaves a bad taste, though, a very bad taste.

That’s all I have for today.