In the days since Theo Fleury gave yet another spin on what has become a revolving door of allegations of child sexual abuse in junior hockey, the first wave of reporting has focused on three issues:
1) Why did the former National Hockey League great wait so long to disclose the truth?
2) What impact will this disclosure have on his personal life, including his battle to survive as a recovering alcoholic?
3) How could Fleury, as a one-time, part-owner of the Western Hockey League’s Calgary Hitmen, justify hiring his since convicted tormentor, Graham James, to coach there, thereby putting another generation of kids at risk?
Interesting questions all, but let’s add a fourth issue, one that has repeatedly been either overlooked or ignored:
When does the NHL, the Canadian Hockey League , the parents who send their sons into the system, the media and the country in general stand up and demand protection for their children?
What Fleury has revealed in excerpts from his book, "Playing with Fire" isn’t new or, technically, even news. He merely confirms what former junior teammate Sheldon Kennedy revealed over a decade ago: that James was a sexual predator who forever altered (some would say destroyed) the lives, the sanity and perhaps even the basic humanity of Kennedy and others who were under his control.
In essence Fleury confirms what everyone close to hockey has either known or long suspected: that he was one of James’ victims.
His words:
"The direct result of my being abused was that I became a f---ing raging, alcoholic lunatic. (James) destroyed my belief system. The most influential adult in my life at the time was telling me that what I thought was wrong, was right.
"I no longer had faith in myself or my own judgment. And when you come down to it, that’s all a person has. Once it’s gone, how do you get it back?"
Thirteen years after Kennedy asked the same question, just a year after so many sordid details were put into the public record during the David Frost trial, we still are not only not dealing with the problem, we aren’t even dealing with the root cause of the problem.
For the record, Frost, who was first a coach and later a hockey agent, was acquitted of all charges in part because the boys under his control did not corroborate testimony from women who as teenage girls appeared to make a believable case for their youthful victimization.
We seemingly can’t get past the idea that somehow the victim, not the perpetrator is the story. We can’t seem to see that a system that allows the perpetrator to have such terrifying control over its victims, is at least partly at fault.
It’s not like the silence of shame can’t be broken. The media that exposed the sins of the Catholic Church in the United States has shown us the path that needs to be followed. To its credit, the same Church that for decades tried to hide its collective crimes by buying silence and reassigning its predatory priests has –as a result of some relentless scrutiny-- at least attempted to confront its problems, comfort its victims and explore methods to change a system that may help both develop and protect sexual criminals.
Isn’t it time that Canadian media, hockey people at every level and families at the grass-roots level of junior and youth hockey do the same.
There has been talk, and to its credit junior hockey has initiated changes regarding coach screenings and helping victims, but has it really been enough?
The James case created a sensation, especially after he was convicted on more than 350 counts of sexual abuse of children, but he served just over three years of a relatively light five-year sentence before being released to a halfway house. Almost immediately after his release he followed Roman Polanski to Europe where, at last report, he was coaching children again.
Today’s reports repeatedly make the case that it would be up to Fleury to go after James in a courtroom. Law enforcement officials maintain that in virtually all cases they need the victim to file a formal complaint and that Fleury would need to do the same.
Fleury Wednesday hinted he just might do that, but should he really have to do it? Isn’t the crime said to have been perpetrated on Fleury a crime against humanity and especially a crime against the most defenseless of all humanity, our children? Why is it strictly up to the victim, a victim whom we’ve now seen to be so badly damaged by the experience that he once put a gun in his mouth before deciding not to pull the trigger, could well be putting his mental and physical well being at risk simply by confronting the alleged sexual attacker?
Isn’t it time we shoulder some of this burden?
Isn’t it an obligation of media to track down James’ whereabouts and determine whether or not he is still dealing with children?
Isn’t it the obligation of the Moose Jaw police, acting in the best interest of all the children in that community to determine whether or not a crime against Fleury had been committed by James based simply on the Kennedy trial and the allegations in Fleury’s just released book?
Isn’t it hockey’s obligation to determine more fully how many more James-like coaches have control over children who are away from home, away from their parents and largely at the beck and call of men who are in near total control of their lives and their hockey careers?
Didn’t the Kennedy case teach us that? Didn’t the Frost case teach us that? Didn’t the damming whispers around the Swift Current Broncos teams when James was coaching there teach us that?
It has long been a given that our institutions can’t protect us and our children from everything and everyone, but reading Fleury’s painfully detailed allegations of abuse, how can we not be moved to ask them to try just a little bit harder?
And given that in today’s hockey world our daughters are now coming under the influence of coaches and at an increasingly tender age, how can we not be moved to take a more active role ourselves regarding our children?
Fleury says a coach took a 14-year-old boy into his bed, abused him and terrified him with the threat that if he spoke of the abuse he would ruin his chances of an NHL career. Fleury also detailed in the same graphic way the dismal impact that had on both his life and his career. Kennedy did the same some 13 years ago, but can we honestly say there is a system in place today that would limit the chances of that happening to yet another child?
And do we know with any certainty how many have suffered already?
History shows the Canadian junior development system is likely the best system for developing world-class hockey talent. There isn’t another system like it, but does its obvious success have to sometimes be at the ultimate expense of children?
In Canada, pretty much like no other place in the sports world, teams, and by extension, coaches are allowed to make both reputations and large sums of money off kids. These kids are encouraged to leave their homes and the protection of their families. They are paid next to nothing but are promised at least the chance of someday developing to a level where they are qualified to play in the greatest league in the world.
The result is that the NHL and the junior teams are the primary beneficiaries of what is, in essence, child labour bordering on financial exploitation.
Both the children, their families and the many hockey leagues accept that, but it seems only fair that in return we all do everything possible to prevent the kind of tragedy that befell Kennedy, Fleury, Mike Danton/Jefferson, an unnamed NHL player whose name was kept out of the public record during court testimony involving the Swift Current Broncos, and who knows how many more.
To do anything else is a failure of unfathomable proportions.
It's a failure that fails not just the victims, but us. Every one of us.
