NHL
Hockey
Canada Trial
A group chat that was created for the players who were in room 209 at the Delta Armouries hotel on the night of an alleged sexual assault in London, Ont., was revealed in court on Thursday.
Tyler Steenbergen, a member of Canada’s 2018 national world junior team — and the Crown’s latest witness in the sexual assault trial of five of his former teammates — spoke about the chat, which he provided to investigators, and answered questions from Crown attorney Heather Donkers.
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The court heard the chat was started by Dillon Dubé after Hockey Canada opened its initial investigation into the incident on June 26, 2018, and included the four other accused — Carter Hart, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton and Michael McLeod — as well as Jake Bean, Maxime Comtois, Drake Batherson, Brett Howden, Sam Steel and Steenbergen. (None of the players who are not charged are accused of any wrongdoing.)
In the chat, players discussed what to say to investigators and to get on the same page.
“We all need to say the same thing if we get interviewed,” McLeod sent to the group, according to the chat. “Can’t have different stories or make anything up.”
A short time later, Bean wrote: “No, boys. Like we don’t need to make anything up. No one did anything wrong. We went to that room to eat. The girl came, she wanted to have sex with all of us. No one did. She gave a few guys head, and then we got out of the room when things got too crazy.”
E.M. — the complainant at the center of the trial — has said she was sexually assaulted over the span of several hours in the London hotel room. She said she met the group of players who were in town for a Hockey Canada event celebrating their gold medal at the 2018 World Junior Championship and willingly left with McLeod.
She said she engaged in consensual sex with McLeod, but that he invited several of his teammates into the hotel room without her knowledge or consent. E.M. has testified that she went on “auto-pilot” — describing a detached experience in which her mind separated from her body during the events in the hotel room, as she did what she felt the men in the room wanted her to do.
Over seven days of cross-examination, defense lawyers asserted that it was E.M. who asked McLeod to invite his friends into the room and was the aggressor. During his cross-examination of E.M., Daniel Brown — attorney for Formenton — said she asked the players, “are you going to f— me, or play golf?”
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Dubé told players in the group chat that anybody who “did things” got consent from the woman.
The Crown says that McLeod, Hart and Dubé all obtained oral sex from E.M. without her consent, and that Formenton had vaginal sex with E.M. without her consent. The Crown has also told the jury that Dubé slapped E.M.’s naked buttocks while she was engaged in a sexual act with another person, and that Foote did the splits and grazed his genitals over her face as she lay on the ground.
In the group chat, Bean reminded everyone of a video McLeod took of E.M., which the jury has seen, in which she says “it was all consensual.”
To that, McLeod asked: “What should I say if they ask why I took the videos tho” (sic)
“You took the videos because you wanted to make sure nothing bad would happen,” Bean replied. “And cover yourself.”
When asked about the texts to that point, Steenbergen said the accounts were “pretty accurate of what I had seen.”
As the players continued to discuss what to do in the June 26 chat, Dubé suggested that the group be cautious about how they describe the incidents to investigators, in case the complainant found out and became “even more angry.”
“Let’s not make her sound like too crazy,” Dubé wrote.
On Wednesday, during his first appearance in the witness box, Steenbergen told the court that he witnessed Hart and McLeod receive oral sex from the woman after she asked the men assembled in the room for sex.
Steenbergen said he initially went to the room because he received a text message via group chat saying there was food in McLeod’s room. He went up to the room with two other teammates, including Dubé. There were seven men, including Hart, Formenton and McLeod, in the room when they arrived, he said, and soon after, he said someone mentioned there was “a naked girl in the bathroom.”
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On Thursday, Steenbergen described the atmosphere in the room as awkward and told the court he was in disbelief as to what was going on. He said he and Bean left the room as soon as the woman went to the bathroom.
“I just didn’t want to step over a naked girl,” he said. “I was trying to avoid the situation. And when there was a clear path to leave, that’s when we decided to leave.”
As the text messages continued on June 27, 2018, players began to express disbelief about the investigation, as they were told Hockey Canada wanted to conduct interviews in person.
Said Comtois: “Are you f—ing kidding me?”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Bean. “Like this is nothing and we can’t be making this big of a (sic) deal out of it.”
The players discussed getting lawyers and reiterated that they did not do anything wrong.
“We didn’t rape anyone,” Comtois said.
Eventually, Bean advised everyone to stop talking about the incident in the group chat and to “talk to your agents about this.” The chat ended shortly thereafter.
Steenbergen also said on Thursday that he received a call from both Dubé and Foote asking him to not say what he saw them do and to let them explain themselves. He said investigators did not ask him about those incidents specifically, so he did not bring it up — but would have, he said, had he been asked.
Earlier in his testimony, Steenbergen told the jury that he witnessed Dubé slapping the naked woman on the buttocks. He also said he witnessed Foote do the splits over her, but he could not see if he made contact with the woman or recall if he was clothed at the time.
After a lunch break, Justice Maria Carroccia dismissed the jury for the day.
“There are some things I have to discuss with the lawyers this afternoon,” she said.
The Athletic’s coverage will resume on Friday.
— The Athletic′s Hailey Salvian and Dan Robson reported remotely from Toronto.
(Courtroom sketch of the defendants earlier in the trial by Alexandra Newbould / The Canadian Press via AP)

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