Four players currently on leave from their NHL teams, and a former NHL player, were charged with sexual assault regarding an alleged incident that took place while celebrating Canada’s win at the 2018 IIHF World Junior Championship.
The London, Ontario Police Service announced that Michael McLeod was charged with two counts of sexual assault, while Cal Foote, Dillon Dube, Carter Hart and Alex Formenton were charged with one count of sexual assault.
Hart, a goalie, is on leave from the Philadelphia Flyers, Dube, a forward, is on leave from the Calgary Flames, and McLeod, a forward, and Foote, a defenseman, are on leave from the New Jersey Devils.
Formenton, whose NHL playing rights belong to the Ottawa Senators, is on a leave of absence from his team in Switzerland, HC Ambri-Piotta.
London Police Chief Thai Truong said Monday the alleged incident occurred on June 18, 2018, following an event in London that honored the gold-medal winning World Junior team.
Troung said “the accused and several teammates met the victim at a downtown bar, and later invited her to a hotel room, where the sexual assault by the individuals now charged took place."
An original investigation by London police found there were insufficient grounds for charges.
But a second investigation by the London police, which began in 2022, resulted in new evidence and interviews with more witnesses that led to the current charges.
On Friday, during his press conference at NHL All-Star Weekend, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said he does not believe the four NHL players will return to their teams this season.
"They're away from their teams now and they're all [restricted] free agents [after this season]," Commissioner Bettman said. “As a personal matter, if I were them, I'd be focusing on defending themselves assuming the charges come down. I would be surprised if they're playing while this is pending."
The Commissioner said the NHL first learned about the alleged incident May 26, 2022, which was after Hockey Canada and the London Police Service finished initial investigations that were inconclusive.
The League conducted its own investigation concurrently with reopened investigations by the London Police Service and Hockey Canada. Commissioner Bettman said the NHL investigation took 12 months to complete.
"Our investigators reviewed volumes of information and conducted interviews of all players on the 2018 team, as well as other relevant individuals who were willing to participate in an investigation," the Commissioner said. "We had concluded the investigatory portion of our process to the extent we could, and we were working with the NHL Players' Association to analyze the information we had, create a process to move forward and then determine what was an appropriate response when the news of the impending charges broke last week. We had heard similar rumors before about the possibility of charges, none of which had come to fruition. And in this instance, we did not have advance notice from the London authorities."
Commissioner Bettman would not comment on if the NHL investigation yielded a conclusion into wrongdoing on behalf of the players.
The NHL will not release any information from its investigation while the charges are pending, deputy commissioner Bill Daly said.
"There is a serious judicial process that looks like it's unfolding, and we didn't while we were doing our investigation want to interfere with what the London Police Service was doing and we're not going to do anything to interfere or influence the judicial proceedings," Commissioner Bettman said. "We're all going to have to see how that plays out and we will then be in a position to respond appropriately, which we will do."
NHL.com senior writer Dan Rosen contributed to this report
