Allison Forsyth, a former Olympic skier, safe sport advocate, and abuse survivor, is joining Headversity, a Calgary-based company whose mental health platform and safe sport training is used by sport organizations countrywide. Evolving the foundation of the current Respect in Sport program, Headversity will integrate the curriculum and methodology of Forsyth’s company Generation Safe. Forsyth will become the Headversity’s chief sport officer. @AlliForsyth

My new book, WE BREED LIONS: Confronting Canada’s Troubled Hockey Culture, is coming this fall. Hockey in Canada is at a crossroads. Over the past three years, I have interviewed current and former junior hockey players, as well as parents, player agents, hockey coaches and executives, team owners, legal experts and sociologists about hockey culture in Canada. Their stories are shocking and offer insights into so much about our national game that is broken. Yet there are reasons to be optimistic. I’ve also spoken to men and women who want to see hockey get to a better place and are working hard to help young players become the best versions of themselves playing the game they love. Coming in November 2025 via @randomhouseca. Pre-order your copy today: penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/…

New: Ontario’s Office of the Chief Coroner, with the assistance of the Waterloo Regional Police Service, is undertaking a second investigation into the death of 17-year-old minor hockey player Benjamin Teague, who died during a “team building” event hosted by his Oakville Rangers team. The new investigation, confirmed by the coroner’s office, comes after the OPP found York Regional Police Service officers negligent in their original investigation into Benjamin’s death in 2019. A posthumous toxicology report concluded that Benjamin had the drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, in his system at the time of his death. When mixed with alcohol, the colourless, tasteless, odorless chemical can be lethal even in small doses, Dr. Lewis Nelson, the Director of Medical Toxicology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School told me in an interview.

One in five coaches in Ontario are aware of extreme hazing rituals within their club or organization in the past two years, according to a new survey released by the Coaches Association of Ontario. Extreme hazing practices include pressure to consume alcohol or drugs, physical and/or sexual assault, and pretend abductions/kidnappings, the association said. The survey also reported that almost 20 percent of coaches reported a positive view of hazing-like initiation practices and that only 43 percent of coaches intervene to stop hazing when it discovered. @coaches_ont safesport101.coachesontario.…

After two 14-year-old boys were reportedly found to have sexually abused an 11-year-old in a gym and suspended indefinitely by Gymnastics Quebec, their parents downplayed the behaviour, calling it “teasing,” and filed a lawsuit to challenge the suspensions. Their efforts were unsuccessful. Raises interesting questions about the extremes some parents will go to defend children who behave deplorably. via @LP_LaPresse. lapresse.ca/sports/chronique…

While criminal charges are a matter of public record, neither the Peterborough Police Service nor the Petes informed the public that one of the OHL team’s billets was charged with sexual exploitation. Billets have been advised by the Petes that another billet may face criminal charges, The Peterborough Examiner reported today.

The London Police Service will provide an update this afternoon at 2 pm et related to a sexual assault investigation involving players from Canada’s 2018 WJC team. TSN will broadcast the news conference live and begin our coverage at 1:45. Chief Thai Truong and Detective Sergeant Katherine Dann of the LPS's Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Section are expected to take questions from media. Here's a backgrounder on what may happen behind the scenes in the coming weeks and months: tsn.ca/nhl/with-players-from…

Former Chicoutimi Saguenéens player Carl Latulippe filed a $15.7M lawsuit in April 2023 against the CHL, the QMJHL and its teams, alleging he and other rookie players were beaten with bars of soap in towels and were forced to watch pornography and masturbate on a team bus in the presence of adult coaches. Latulippe was Chicoutimi's first-round draft pick in 1994. He quit the QMJHL team weeks into the 1994-95 season. Media at the time reported he was homesick and missed his girlfriend. Latulippe's allegations have been corroborated by a teammate, acc to a media report. A judge in a Québec City court is scheduled to hear arguments on Mar. 19 about whether the case should proceed as a class action. (The QMJHL has said it hired a lawyer to investigate Latulippe's allegations, but has not committed to making the investigation findings public.)

Breaking: Five members of the 2018 world junior hockey team have been told to surrender to London, Ont., police to face charges of sexual assault, The Globe and Mail reports, citing unnamed sources. The Globe reports the players, who have not been charged yet, have been given a set period of time to present themselves at London police headquarters. via @robyndoolittle.

Canadian sport organizations are steadily becoming more transparent about sanctions for misconduct. The latest example: When someone appeals a discipline decision made by Hockey Canada's independent third party, the results are now being disclosed. Among the first such disclosures is the case of a teenaged B.C. hockey player whose name has been anonymized in a recent discipline decision. The player, who was drafted by a WHL team, allegedly bullied a teammate when he was 15 during the 2022-23 season and took part in an incident last March in which the teammate was held down while the player pulled his pants and underwear down and “lowered his exposed buttocks and anus over [the teammate’s] face until it touched before standing back up.” The player was suspended for six months, as was another player who held down their teammate. Complaints against several others were dismissed. After the player appealed his suspension in July -- he said he would miss both a tryout camp for B.C.’s provincial team as well as the start of his WHL team’s training camp -- his suspension was changed. The player was instead suspended from all games until Oct. 14, but was allowed to participate in on-ice activities, including practices, beginning Sept. 22. The player was also placed on probation through July 12, 2024, during which he will be on a behavioural contract at his hockey academy. He was also instructed to write a paper and present it to classmates about the incident and the lessons he learned. A source tells me there are “many, many, many” complaints that have been made to provincial federation and Hockey Canada's ITP about contemporary cases of hazing.