Arizona Coyotes defenseman and 2018 Canada Junior Team member Conor Timmins says he was ‘not involved in any way’ in alleged gang rape four years ago on the sidelines of an event overseen by Hockey Canada.
Posted at 8:56
In June 2018, hours after the Hockey Canada Foundation’s annual gala in London, Ont., eight hockey players allegedly sexually assaulted a young woman in a hotel room. The victim has filed a civil lawsuit against the suspects, against the Canadian Hockey League (or CHL, which brings together the three major junior hockey leagues in the country) and against Hockey Canada. It was ultimately the latter organization that reached an amicable agreement with the complainant.
Some of the suspects were members of the national team that had won gold at the World Junior Championship a few months earlier, and had been honored that evening at the gala.
Conor Timmins was part of the champion team.
“I was not involved in any way in the incident which gave rise to the allegations which have been reported. No one is alleging that I was present or involved and I have no personal knowledge of what happened,” reads the statement released by his agency, Quartexx.
The 23-year-old defenseman says he cooperated “fully” with Hockey Canada’s initial investigation and will continue to do so. “The investigations being in progress, I will not comment on the case further”, adds the Ontarian.
Timmins isn’t the first player to walk away from the case. Defender Victor Mete also did so in a statement posted on his social media on June 30.
Since the prosecution identifies the eight suspects as CHL players, goaltender Colton Point as well as defensemen Cale Makar and Dante Fabbro, who were then aligned with American university teams, are also excluded from the list of potential aggressors. Freelance journalist Ken Campbell also established, after contacting agents for Jonah Gadjovich and Cal Foote, that they were not among the suspects.