Quote:
Originally Posted by IliketoPuck
Humour me, illustrious legal minds, on my thoughts below. Not a “will this result in a conviction or not” perspective, but one that attempts to hypothesize how the stories have diverged so substantively over time.
If there was absolutely nothing to this, why did Hockey Canada cut a multimillion dollar cheque in return for an NDA?
My thought is that because whatever they were paying to keep quiet via the NDA was damaging enough in their view to warrant millions of dollars. But that information can’t be included as evidence, because the hockey players careers were coerced / threatened. Which, again, why would they lie to make things worse when facing that kind of pressure from Hockey Canada? Purely my opinion, but I think they were threatened and came clean, and because there were no criminal charges at the time, that would have been it after Hockey Canada purchased EMs silence. Once the story broke and became public interest, the criminal investigation nullified the NDA, bringing things to light.
Carter Hart and Detective Newton’s testimony this week is not consistent with a story that requires a multi million dollar settlement, in my view.
I fully expect the legal proceedings to result in a not guilty verdict. It sure seems like once the text messages were ruled inadmissible that the prosecution began to speed run this trial without a cogent strategy to proving things beyond reasonable doubt. Perhaps their strategy is now to appeal the likely outcome?
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Regardless of the consent issue, there was easily enough smoke to see why HC would want to bury this.
Even if consensual, it was a group sex involving a drunk 20 year old woman and over half a dozen largely high profile hockey players. The dirtbag hockey players passed around video of the incident afterwards. This is not the image that Hockey Canada wants to promote, and it's more certainly more than "absolutely nothing".
Don't undervalue the importance of reputation, particularly in any kind of work or professional (including sports) environment.
At the time HC made the payment, there would be no way to conclusively prove who was telling the truth or whether any acts were criminal. They would only be looking at the risk of a criminal conviction and the damage done to their (and the players reputation) if all the events go public. Even now, after hearing a lot of the evidence, there's uncertainty about whether a criminal conviction will stick.