Alex Formenton faces criminal charges from 2018 incident | The Athletic Hockey Show

[Music] we probably should start with the most what's the word here new I guess news wory story of the weekend and and full credit goes to the Globe and Mail uh newspaper up here in Canada they were the first to report uh about the five players from Team Canada's 2018 World Junior hockey team that would be charged in London Ontario uh Alex forington's lawyer sent me an email LA on Sunday uh and I'll just read it out verbatim says quote qu the London Police have charged several players including Alex foring in connection with an accusation made in 2018 Alex will vigorously defend his innocence ask ask that people not rush rush the Judgment without hearing all of the evidence that is from Alex's lawyer Daniel Brown sent that via email so what I want to get into though is the column you wrote last week because when you wrote the column last week LZ we didn't quite know exactly who the names were we know at least one of them now is Alex foron his lawyer has has it that said he's been charged and I want to go back to the Crux of your column because I actually think not all columns La trans translate well into the podcast form but yours does because it was it was opinionated it came from a thoughtful place and I'm wondering for the people that didn't have a chance to read it what was what was your message that you were trying to convey as it pertains to Hockey Canada I you know the fact that we're getting names put to this I think changes the way it's perceived right it's been very easy for hockey fans to kind of pretend this is something that's going on in the background that it's not a current story that it's not something they need to think about but now it's going to be I mean we kind of know the names but we don't officially know the names right obviously forington's the first to that to become official but when Suddenly It's someone whose jersey you own when Suddenly It's someone who you've cheered when it's it's someone you know and watched on TV it becomes a little more real right a little more tangible it's not this esoteric you know you know thing off in the distance in the back of your mind it's much more front and center now and that's going to really I hope I hope and I you know I was openly wondering in the column because I don't have a lot of faith in this sport sometimes but I'm hoping that that reality will kind of force and and compel some of the changes that we've that you and I and a lot of people have been talking about for a long time about fixing this broken hockey culture where we raise these boys into young men who who feel they're Above the Law they're they're treated like gods and the time they're 11 years old they they are put in these insular locker rooms and they never have they never meet anybody outside their own team the same coaches the same teammates for years and years and years they don't go to a regular high school they don't go to college and and at 18 19 years old they think they're just Untouchable and privileged and they do horrible things to each other to other people to women and I'm hoping that maybe the reality of this when it's names you know when it's NHL players and the math says there has to be NHL players here right five players charg only two players on that entire World Junior Team Canada did not make it to the NHL so these are names people know and I'm hoping that that reality will kind of be the wakeup call that this sport needs to really make some changes in the way that it goes about particularly raising young hockey players yeah you know what I and it's so well put right because there is an Institutional uh issue at play here and it's Hockey Canada obviously the governing body for hockey in in in the country that I live in that there's a culture of silence and I think it was the perfect kind of storm of power and silence and you know all of these things came together and I'm hoping like you said that we can detonate some of those uh Dan Robson put it perfectly in his in his column the other day about how it's just time and time and time again everyone in power from Hockey Canada to the government to the police none of them stood up and did the right thing this is what we saw with the Blackhawks with Kyle beach nobody had the fortitude the moral authority to stand up and do the right thing we've seen this in hazing incidents in the past we've seen this in other assaults in the past it's just this like you said the culture of silence is a really good way to put it that we protect the team and not the people the team is hurting and you know it's important that Monday February 5th so exactly one week from today seven days from now the police department in London Ontario will host a press conference and last I mean you've you've covered you're like me you've covered Sports and you've been around you're kind of a bit of a News Junkie like like I am have you ever seen an entity and in this case a police department announce a press uh conference basically 14 days in advance like I I don't ever like for something newsworthy I don't think I've ever seen this so and I think it speaks to the magnitude the public interest all of these elements that are going to come to the Forefront on Monday I don't think I've ever seen that it's really usually it's like we're calling a press conference in an hour or tomorrow morning two weeks in advance it's crazy I don't know if that's because they want to give the the the the the the those being charged time to surrender uh time to what whatever it is but it it's a very unusual way of doing business here and all it does is just amp up the speculation more right you got two weeks of speculation everyone's trying to figure out who it is you go into the comment section of my column and Dan's column and everyone's nameing names because it's just that's the world we live in on the Internet is there is no patience for these kinds of things so it almost it feels like one more misstep doesn't it like let's just add fuel to the fire for two more weeks for no reason at all right yeah and and you know I think it's interesting like so I wrote a piece on Forton that ran Sunday afternoon and the comment section was disabled and that was a dis like that was a direct and and I'm okay to have these conversations I think transparency is the key and I'm okay with that like I'll be honest with you I went into your comment section and Dan robson's uh yeah the comments were open on Dan's too and I just thought wow uh like what are we doing here like as you know Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it that's essentially one big comment section right that's all that is and like I don't know where like I don't know where I stand on comment sections because I don't want people to think that I'm like you know suppressing your right to express your opinion it's not that I just don't know what we're adding sometimes on comment sections on these types of stories you want to talk about uh you know Chicago and why like just from a hockey perspective Connor Bard in the cder trophy you want to have the comments open for that so Minnesota fans can jump in and say no no Brock Faber is the guy that's okay it still turns into a a assess pool of comments about other topics too anyway when you do that yeah but but I think in these cases I don't know where you stand on this I'm okay with the comments being turned off I really am my the comment section in almost everything I write is such a waste of space now at this point because of all the various things that we touch on I think you experienced this to some degree too uh but I I guess if I put my editor hat on right now if I go back to a previous life and I and if if if a topic like my my my column was a column it was an opinion piece right and if I'm allowed to talk on it then so should our readers whereas yours that particular one was a newsie stra news so if you're writing a news piece it doesn't require the the the the uh comments we don't need to comment on the facts but you can comment on my opinion you can comment on Dan opinion I think that's probably the way we're looking at it I no I haven't talked to anybody in the company about it but I feel like that's probably the logic behind it and there's some that makes sense to me you know if you're writing an opinion piece not just here is because you don't want to have people commenting on facts and trying to spin them their own way you wrote a fact yep and you know I wrote an opinion and you've written plenty of opinion columns and you've seen what the comment section becomes but I think that's the idea if we can talk about it then they should be able to talk about it too yep and that's absolutely fair and you know so I'm working with with Chris Johnston on something for this like we want to look at you know instances where what happens when NHL players have been charged criminally like what what is history say and you know what last when we were digging up the story you know what I completely forgot about was seian varlamov right with the Avalanche was charged with kidnapping and I think it was third degree um domestic assault or domestic violence yeah and the NHL allowed him to travel and play with the Avalanche for two months mons while the charges were like he had been charged charges eventually got dropped but I think it just shows you uh that was 11 years ago I I I don't know what the NHL's reaction is going to be to this I would just say I would be very surprised if any current NHL players if they are charged criminally by the London Police on Monday I don't see a path to them playing in the NHL this season I see a suspension that's that but again that's my opinion that's a that's an educated guess right yeah I mean you know we we like to think that we move forward and that we get better at this uh Patrick Kane played during his whole uh while his whole you know sexual assault uh you know investigation was going on right that was a Civil Trial was it not civil not the Blackhawks took a lot of criticism for that for allowing him to play during that and trotting him out during training camp to Big Ovations and stuff the Optics were very bad on that and it's something that that every you know the league had away now you know as we move toward a society who you know thankfully is starting to believe women more um you need to let the the justice system take its course and sometimes that means sitting someone and I know there's there's innocence until proven guilty of course but there has to be some you know rationale behind whether you let a guy play through that or not