The five players embroiled in the high-profile Hockey Canada Five rape case are soon expected to be eligible for return to the NHL after a Canadian judge acquitted the men of sexual assault charges stemming from a 2018 incident during a celebration of Team Canada\u2019s gold medal at the World Junior Championship.<\/p>\n
The very public trial laid bare many details of the incident, with the judge ultimately ruling that the woman in question consented to sexual encounters with the five players. However, that hasn\u2019t stopped many hockey fans from voicing their opinions that they would not like to see the players reinstated into the NHL.<\/p>\n
In all likelihood, just two players are primed to make an NHL roster this upcoming season: Carter Hart and Michael McLeod. The Vegas Golden Knights and Carolina Hurricanes are considering signing Hart, who was the starting goaltender for the Philadelphia Flyers for much of his career. And the Hurricanes are also considering signing McLeod, a third-line center.<\/p>\n
The players\u2019 inevitable returns have understandably been a topic of conversation in the media. Neither has played since the 2023-24 season, when they were forced to take a leave of absence as they addressed the scandal. As such, reporters are eager to ask questions about how a team might address their return.<\/p>\n
Mark Lazerus, a senior NHL writer for The Athletic, recently traveled to both Las Vegas and Raleigh, N.C., to inquire about a possible return for these players. One franchise, however, wasn\u2019t ready to speak with Lazerus. In fact, the Golden Knights went so far as to revoke Lazerus\u2019s press credentials and kick him out of the team\u2019s practice facility. Lazerus recounts the situation in a piece recently published in The Athletic<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cThe team declined to allow head coach Bruce Cassidy to speak to The Athletic one-on-one after learning of the topic. Several minutes later, before Cassidy began a news conference, the spokesperson pulled an Athletic reporter out of the room and told him to leave the team\u2019s practice facility immediately. The Athletic\u2019s press pass for that evening\u2019s preseason game was revoked. The spokesperson said The Athletic had \u2018ambushed\u2019 Noah Hanifin during routine locker-room media interviews that morning and the team was not \u2018comfortable\u2019 allowing the reporter to cover the game.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the alleged \u201cambush,\u201d Golden Knights defenseman Noah Hanifin readily answered questions about the possibility of Hart joining the team. \u201cWhenever you\u2019re in a locker room with guys, you\u2019re brothers, you\u2019re family,\u201d Hanifin told The Athletic. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to take care of each other, no matter what\u2019s going on, good or bad, off the ice. You want to make sure that when guys come to the rink, they feel they have the support and that they\u2019re part of it. That\u2019s a huge part of being on a team.\u201d<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t seem like the type of response a player would give after being ambushed by a reporter.<\/p>\n Time and again, organizations like the Golden Knights draw more attention to a situation by trying to suppress a journalist than if they allowed the reporter to do their job. Rather than crafting the sort of non-answer that would\u2019ve elicited a few eye rolls to the few paying attention, the Golden Knights now look guilty in front of a much wider audience.<\/p>\n