Reply To: Articles

[hockeygod]

Former pro hockey player awarded $605,000 over sex assault by coach

By KIM WESTAD, Timescolonist.com April 6, 2011

A former pro hockey player who said his NHL career was cut short because of sexual abuse inflicted by a childhood coach has been awarded $605,000 by the B.C. Supreme Court.

The 35-year-old Victoria businessman, who was good enough to be drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs, sued former coach Richard Hall in civil court for damages resulting from two sexual assaults when he was 13.

Justice Dev Dley ruled in a written judgment that the assaults and their impact — drinking, dysfunction and mental health difficulties — damaged the man's National Hockey League career, specifically the loss of a first three-year contract with the NHL.

The judge awarded a total of $605,000, covering everything from loss of money from that first contract, about $372,000, to $4,500 for future psychotherapy.

Hall, a former Oak Bay Minor Hockey Association coach, had also abused two minor hockey players, who later successfully sued the provincial government. The judge in that case ruled that Hall's probation officer was negligent in the fulfilment of his duties and the provincial government, as the probation officer's employer, was liable.

The probation officer had a duty to inform the minor hockey association that Hall had been convicted in 1984 of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy and had been sentenced to two years probation.

However, the association was not told and Hall went on to sexually abuse more players, including the man who successfully sued the provincial government this week.

Hall assaulted the man twice in the summer of 1988, including oral and anal intercourse. The assaults left the boy, who had been close to the coach, feeling betrayed, angry and ashamed.

He disclosed the assaults in 1989, after other sexual assaults by Hall were publicized.

The player carried on with hockey, his lawyer Doug Thompson said, although he experienced an undercurrent of anger when he walked into a rink, found it difficult to trust another coach and had difficulty forming relationships. In Grade 10, he discovered alcohol.

By Grade 11, he had drawn the eye of U.S. universities and the Western Hockey League.

He completed Grade 12 playing in the WHL, though he felt anger and a lack of emotional control on the ice, Dley wrote.

He drew the attention of the Maple Leafs when he was 17 and was drafted by them.

In the years before and shortly after, he still lashed out on the ice, and had numerous drunken binges. By early 1995, he had bottomed out, Dley said, and it was only then that he told his team managers about the abuse. He was counselled that year and had the best year of his junior career.

However, his career did not lead to the NHL. In June 1995, the Leafs told him they would not offer him a contract. He played hockey for several more years in the American Hockey League and the East Coast Hockey League, both below the NHL.

Although Thompson argued that the man's career was hurt in various ways by the abuse, the judge ruled that the main impact was the loss of a first contract with an NHL team. The abuse created several mood and personality disorders, diagnosed by a psychologist.

Hockey requires not just physical ability, Dley wrote, but emotional control, mental toughness, a strong sense of identity, trust, a positive attitude and coachability in order to excel.

"I am satisfied that the plaintiff's disorders, which affected his mental health, had a negative impact on the mental and emotional tools required to fully realize one's potential as a professional hockey player," Dley wrote.

Without the disorders, Dley wrote, there was a "real possibility that the plaintiff would have been drafted higher. A higher draft position would likely have resulted in the plaintiff being given a better chance to secure a contract. … The plaintiff was denied that opportunity."
—–

Court awards abused BC hockey player cash

Tamsyn Burgmann, The Canadian Press, April 7, 2011

VANCOUVER – A British Columbia judge has awarded more than half a million dollars to a former hockey player who was sexually assaulted by his coach, a decision an ex-NHL star who was abused himself says is most meaningful if it helps the victim heal.

B.C. Supreme Court Judge Dev Dley awarded the victim $605,000 in damages after ruling the 35-year-old B.C. man's playing career suffered because he was sexually molested twice by his junior hockey coach when he was 13.

The man, who is not identified in the judgment, sued the B.C. government to get compensation for the possible income he might have earned through multiple hockey contracts over several years.

The province admitted liability in the case, after a previous trial found a probation officer failed to tell the minor hockey association where the man first played that convicted sex offender Richard Hall was volunteering in the organization.

In early March, a Victoria court heard expert testimony that the abuse was a critical factor in the development of dysfunctional moods and excessive drinking as the man grew older, and that those problems limited what might have been a promising hockey career.

The judge said without the disorders there is a real possibility the man would have had a better chance to secure an NHL contract. Dley noted in his written judgment posted online on Wednesday that the victim was a Toronto Maple Leafs prospect but never made the team.

Former Calgary Flames forward Theo Fleury, whose 2009 autobiography exposed his own story of sexual abuse as a teen, said the most significant part of the ruling was the portion of costs awarded for rehabilitation.

The man was awarded nearly $15,000 for vocational rehabilitation and psychotherapy, in addition to $372,000 for the loss of his unrealized first hockey contract and other damages.

"At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much time the perpetrator serves, it doesn't matter how much the government pays," Fleury, co-author of Playing With Fire, said in an interview.

"In the end, you want the individual to get the therapy that they need so that they can live a happy, productive life and at peace. At the end of the day, there isn't a certain amount of money that's going to make the pain go away."

Fleury is now a vocal opponent of sex crimes he says permeates not just hockey, but all parts of society. He's still waiting for prominent former coach Graham James— who served almost two years in jail in the late 1990s but later got a federal pardon — to go to trial on nine new sex charges involving himself and two other boys.

Fleury was encouraged by the recent judgment, and said he hopes it pushes governments to enact stiffer laws and forces people in authority, like politicians and police officers, to "pay more attention."

But the outcome didn't sway him to advise all victims to go to the courts.

"It's really up to each individual, where they are in their life," he said.

"If you're in the beginning of your recovery process it's probably not a good idea to throw that on top of what your'e already dealing with."

According to the judgment, the victim was taken under the wing of his abuser starting at age 10, when they went fishing and to the movies together.

"The plaintiff looked upon Mr. Hall as a father figure and big brother," the judgement said of the elder, who was a goalie coach.

When the boy was 13, Hall convinced him his niece wanted to engage in sex acts as long as the boy was blindfolded.

The boy complied but lifted his blindfold to realize the person was Hall.

"The plaintiff was horrified as to what had occurred and terminated his relationship with his assailant. The plaintiff was ashamed and embarrassed. He told no one."

Hall's actions were made public a year later, and the boy told his parents what happened. He got a medical exam but no counselling. The judgment describes the following years of his life, in which he progressed in hockey playing at various levels, as ones in which he increasingly suffered from personality, depressive and alcohol abuse disorders.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."