Ex-canuck latest to allege systemic junior hockey abuse

OTTAWA — Documents filed in Ontario court earlier this month by a former Vancouver Canuck allege shocking tales of sexual abuse in junior hockey more than 40 years ago.

Doug Smith, drafted second overall by the Los Angeles Kings in the NHL Entry Draft in 1981 and who went on to play more than 500 games in the league, including 40 for the Canucks, alleged in an affidavit sworn earlier this year that he suffered “constant” abuse over a three-month period as a rookie during the 1979-80 Ontario Hockey League season with the Ottawa 67’s.

“I suffered abuse during this time that I have lived with for the past 40 years,” he said in his affidavit. “Telling my story has been extremely difficult, but I am telling it because I do not want any other child to go through what I did.”

James Sayce, the lawyer representing Smith and other plaintiffs, including former NHLER Dan Carcillo and former WHLER Garrett Taylor, said the former players’ names have been redacted from the documents his firm has posted online out of courtesy — their names are publicly available in court records — but Smith agreed to have his name published.

In an email, Smith declined further comment for this story.

The other plaintiffs, including several who played junior hockey in British Columbia around the same time as Smith, also allege they endured sexual, physical and emotional abuse from authority figures and teammates from the late 1970s right up until a decade ago.

In his affidavit, Smith says older players on the team taunted him for months before he was finally “rooked.”

“I was paralyzed waiting for it to happen. It’s like being on the front lines in a war and having people shooting at you with nowhere to hide. I knew it was coming,” he said. “I was jumped in the change room. I was blindfolded. The older players held me down, tied me up and took off my clothes. I was naked. They shaved my genitals. They slapped me around. They threw cold water and hot water over me. They covered my genitals in Rub A535. It was terrifying and extremely painful.

“I was taped up, then they placed me in a metal grocery cart and then taped (me) in it. I was completely confined. They rolled me into centre ice at the arena and left me there. They closed the doors and turned off the lights. I do not know how long I was there for. It could have been an hour, but I can’t say for sure. Eventually, a trainer came out and released me.”

He said the abuse in his first three months of his 67’s career was constant.

“If you couldn’t take it, you were out. No exceptions. Some players left the team as a result of the hazing,” he said.

Despite these early traumas, Smith went on to play professional hockey for a decade, his career coming to an end because of a horrific neck injury: he broke vertebrae and tore ligaments in his neck when he crashed head-first into the boards during a game in Austria in 1992.

The father of two young children suddenly found himself paralyzed from the neck down. According to his personal website, he spent the next 13 years learning to walk — and to skate — again. He now lives in Ottawa and works as a motivational speaker and life coach.

“I believe that the hazing I suffered impacted my emotional/mental health to this day. It should never have happened. I still live with it to this day,” he says in the conclusion to his affidavit.

Sayce said Smith’s case is just one of many similar stories from the last four decades of hockey. Another player who has sworn an affidavit as part of the proposed class-action played in the Ontario Hockey League until 2014.

“These are tough guys. A lot of them have been holding it in for decades,” he said. “I think a lot are getting a lot out of sharing their stories.