It’s a slippery slope from here. For those of you confused by that statement, I’m referring to the not-guilty verdict handed down late last week in the Hockey Canada Trial.
There are lots of opinions about what happened and rightly so, but we’re not going to get into those too much. We’re going to try and stick to the facts as much as possible in this column.
Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Alex Formenton, Cal Foote and Carter Hart were all declared not guilty by Justice Maria Carroccia. Whether you agree with her ruling or not is a conversation for a different time. But now that she’s ruled in their favor, the next chapter in this saga is what The NHL does. And that’s where it becomes a slippery slope.
Yes, The League has already put out a statement deeming the five players “ineligible” to play in The NHL while it reviews the Judge’s ruling. The NHLPA countered with a statement saying the players should immediately be allowed back into The League, claiming that they’ve “served their time.”
Ultimately, the fate of the players is in Commissioner Gary Bettman’s hands. Under the CBA, he has the power to suspend, exile, or otherwise punish players for conduct deemed detrimental to The League. This is the same power he used to suspend Slava Voynov after the former LA Kings defenseman pleaded no contest to domestic violence charges against his wife.
Bettman suspended Voynov and after an arbitrator upheld the suspension, the penalty took effect. Voynov’s suspension has technically been over for several years, but no team in The NHL has wanted to take a chance on signing him.
That is the path The NHL should and will likely pursue in this instance. Suspending the five players and then making them go through a certain process after the suspension is over in order to be reinstated is the clearest course of action The League can take. After that, it falls on the individual teams to determine if they want the PR headache that would accompany signing one of the five.
However, if The League decides NOT to act after reviewing Carroccia’s ruling, it can and will likely send the wrong message to fans and the greater hockey world. Of course, if The NHLPA decides to pursue action against The League in the form of a grievance, that will also lead things down a slippery slope.
Yes, as the players’ union, The NHLPA has a duty to defend its members. But this is one instance where it would be best for The PA to stand down should Bettman decide to levy a brief suspension against the five players.
Hockey and The NHL are currently growing and in a more prominent position than they have been in many years, if ever. Even though a Judge ruled that the players were not guilty, there’s still a certain amount of backlash regarding that decision. If The League were to ignore that (which, so far, it isn’t), it would be sending a message that “Hockey Culture” hasn’t changed and that all of its initiatives about inclusivity are essentially lip service.
What occured was bad enough that even though the players weren’t found criminally guilty, it’s not like they’re choir boys either. At best, they displayed a severe lack of judgment in how they behaved. That can’t just be waved away. There’s too much at stake to sweep that under the rug and hope that something like this will never happen again.
If teams want to sign one or more of these players in a couple years from now, that’s one thing and a discussion for another day. But to potentially allow them to do so immediately would be a huge mistake that would risk alienating many fans across The League.
Again, it’s a slippery slope and one that The NHL has to carefully navigate in the coming weeks and months. If it acts correctly, it will buy The League a lot of goodwill. But should The League take a misstep, it will cost them a significant portion of the goodwill they currently have stored away.
