February 29, 2024
James Guillory/USA TODAY Sports
Carter Hart was the leading goaltender of the 2018 Canadian World Junior team.
The five former Canadian World Junior hockey players being charged with sexual assault, of which includes Flyers goaltender Carter Hart, have elected to face a trial by jury, per Robyn Doolittle of The Globe and Mail.
They will be tried together as a group, though it will likely be months before a trial date is set.
Hart, Dillon Dubé of the Calgary Flames, Cal Foote and Michael McLeod of the New Jersey Devils, and Ottawa Senators reserve skater Alex Formenton each face a count of sexual assault stemming from an alleged incident that happened overnight in a London, Ontario hotel room during a two-day, Hockey Canada-run event in the city back in June 2018. McLeod is also facing an additional count of "being a party to the offense."
All five were members of the 2018 Canadian World Junior hockey team, and each surrendered themselves to the London police earlier this month to be charged in a re-opened investigation that had been lingering over the hockey world for nearly two years. They have since been released on undertakings following their first court appearances, the London police said in a press conference regarding the case.
“Earlier this week, all five players selected a trial by jury and they are confident that jurors drawn from the community will decide this case fairly and impartially after hearing all the evidence and testimony,” the players' attorneys said in a joint statement (via Doolittle).
The London police's initial investigation into the matter after it was reported to the department nearly six years ago was closed in February 2019 without sufficient grounds to levy any charges. But in July 2022, after a lawsuit filed by the victim against Hockey Canada, the junior-level Canadian Hockey League, and eight unnamed CHL players whom she alleged she was assaulted by during the 2018 Hockey Canada event reached a settlement and brought the incident into the public light, a major wave of outcry and scrutiny sparked the London police to look back into its initial investigation, all while the NHL and a third party hired by Hockey Canada conducted investigations of their own.
"This is one investigation, not two," Detective sergeant Katherine Dann of the London police's Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Section said of her department's own renewed findings earlier this month. "The evidence that was collected in 2018 and 2019 was used in combination with newly gathered evidence to form reasonable and probable grounds to charge these five individuals with sexual assault."
Hart, 25, was granted an indefinite leave of absence from the Flyers on January 23 following a poor start against the Colorado Avalanche a couple of days prior when he surrendered five goals on 15 shots in a 7-4 loss.
In a similar time frame, Dubé, Foote, McLeod, and Formenton were also granted indefinite leaves of absence from their respective clubs, which coincided with the initial major report from Doolittle that five 2018 Canadian World Junior hockey players had been ordered to surrender themselves to the London police.
At the time, the players were still unnamed, but many started connecting the dots.
Flyers general manager Danny Brière was uncertain of what would happen following Hart's leave and could say little about the situation, but when the charges were confirmed, Hart's presence was scrubbed from the organization. He was removed from the roster, his locker stall at the Wells Fargo Center and the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees was gone, he was taken out of team's home game intro video, and his jersey currently isn't listed for sale on the arena's team store – though it can still be found on the NHL Shop website.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman spoke on the – at the time – pending charges facing the five players during the league's All-Star weekend back at the beginning of February, and given that four of them (Hart included) are on expiring contracts while Formenton isn't signed at all, and with an expected lengthy court process ahead for each, he indicated that the league doesn't seem intent on handing down any punishment itself.
"It becomes irrelevant in terms of the timing," Bettman said. "They're all away from their teams on leave and they're all free agents. They won't be under contract after this season anyway."
"As a personal matter, if I were them, I would be focusing on defending themselves assuming the charges come down," Bettman added. "I would be surprised if they were playing while this is still pending."
The allegations made against the players have not yet been proven.
This is a developing story.
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