What Cornell's alleged rape case and the Hockey Canada trial's striking parallels reveal
In the 2025 Hockey Canada sexual assault trial, five former World Junior hockey players were charged with sexually assaulting a woman, known as E.M. due to a publication ban, in a hotel room in June 2018. One of the men sent a text message to the team inviting them to come to his room to “be in a 3-way quick.”
All of the so-called “Hockey Canada 5” were found not guilty. The NHL reinstated them. One was recently signed by the Edmonton Oilers.
The broader themes in the two cases are “strikingly significant,” said Melanie Randall, an associate professor of law at Western University in London, Ont., who researches gender-based violence.
“Institutional failures, inadequate investigations, an inappropriate focus on what she did and not what they did, misunderstandings of consent — it’s all there,” Randall told CBC News.
The parallels between the two cases are more than a coincidence, Toronto lawyer Gillian Hnatiw, a legal expert in gender-based violence and sexual assault, told CBC News.
Both cases involve exclusive organizations of men — a fraternity at a prestigious university and an elite hockey team — where it’s alleged that no one stepped in to stop a woman from being harmed, Hnatiw said, calling it “a continuation of locker room culture.”
“The fact that there are these communities where as men they feel comfortable not just speaking in this way but inviting their friends to participate in this event, raises serious cultural concerns for me,” Hnatiw said.
“This strikes with Hockey Canada as well, that it seems like not an exceptional thing that one of their teammates sent out a group chat saying come to this room, there’s a girl you can have sex with.”
