from Jack Todd at the Montreal Gazette,

If the folks who run Hockey Canada believed they could brazen their way through this with yet another open letter of apology to Canadians, that belief was quickly shot down by a Globe and Mail story revealing the existence of a $15-million reserve fund used to settle cases of sexual abuse.

Given the number of Canadians who unknowingly contributed to this fund through registration and insurance payments for millions of youngsters, the revelations kicked up a storm from coast to coast. With the cost of the game already high, the news that some of the exorbitant charges from Hockey Canada may be funnelled to the victims of coaches and players suspected of sexual abuse did not go over well.

Hockey Canada quickly responded by promising to no longer use the fund to settle sexual assault claims, but things have reached the point where nothing the organization does is likely to win acceptance or forgiveness, no matter how many mea culpas come from the head office.

This is already the biggest scandal in the history of the game in Canada and with every day Hockey Canada executives sacrifice everything to remain in power, it gets worse. Last week, the organization threw the 2003 World Junior team under the bus as part of its increasingly frantic efforts to maintain the status quo at the top.

The group sexual assault accusations against the 2003 team are serious and must be followed up — but they are no more serious than those in 2018 that Hockey Canada ignored until it was confronted with a lawsuit. New charges against another team aren’t reason to give a long leash to CEO Scott Smith.

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