Without denying that abuse may have been committed when they played for the Voltigeurs de Drummondville in the mid-1990s, former players of the organization claim to have never had knowledge of the physical and sexual abuse described in a request for class action filed this Wednesday morning.
Carl Latulippe, who played with the Saguenéens de Chicoutimi and the Voltigeurs de Drummondville in 1994-1995, is the main plaintiff in a class action suit against the QMJHL, its 18 teams and the Canadian Hockey League. The action seeks to find compensation for “all hockey players who suffered abuse when they were minors and were playing” within the QMJHL from 1969 to the present day.
The story of Latulippe among the Saguenéens was first reported in The Press a few weeks ago. The 45-year-old hockey player described the toxic climate he experienced in the fall of 1994. According to him, the recruits suffered the physical and sexual violence imposed by certain club veterans. He left Chicoutimi during the season and joined the Voltigeurs.
In Drummondville, we can read in the request for collective action, he found a similar dynamic. The recruits “smeared themselves with shampoo before showering so that their skin was slippery and that the veterans could not catch them in the showers to attack them”, supports Mr. Latulippe. In particular, he would have witnessed a shocking scene during which “a teammate was caught by a veteran who inserted a hanger into his anus, causing him to tear”.
The 1994-1995 edition of the Voltigeurs included some well-known names in the hockey world. In particular those of Daniel Brière and Denis Gauthier.
In an exchange of text messages with The Press, Brière, who is now general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers, says he did not witness any of the abuse described in the court document, despite the fact that he himself was a rookie that season. . “I’m not saying it didn’t happen,” he insists. “I was not made aware of these gestures and I did not see anything with my own eyes in this direction”, he adds.
Denis Gauthier, now a television analyst, was part of the Voltigeurs coaching staff from 2010 to 2015 and remained with the club until 2021 in a consulting role. He too claims to have “never been aware” of the alleged facts. “I saw nothing, suffered nothing, did nothing like that,” he said during a brief telephone conversation. However, he is sorry if such an “atrocious” situation took place “under [son] nose “.
In developing the first report on Carl Latulippe, The Press had been made aware of the allegations concerning the Voltigeurs, but had not been able to verify the facts at the time. Their presence in a court document, however, makes them public.
A former player had nevertheless confirmed at that time some of the less severe elements mentioned in the appeal. In particular an initiation activity during which rookie players were forced, under the influence of alcohol, to “pass a mixture of food from mouth to mouth, without swallowing, until the last rookie, who was to ultimately swallow everything”. This person also confirmed that rookie players had been locked naked in a bus toilet, a common practice in Canadian junior hockey in the 90s.
The QMJHL has not yet reacted to the filing of the class action request.
In Quebec, Isabelle Charest, Minister responsible for Sport, Recreation and the Outdoors, refrained from “supporting or not supporting a class action”.
As in the past, she encouraged “people to file a complaint and take the remedies, the right remedies, to have justice”. “Now it’s filed and we’ll see how it will evolve,” she added. Going through the justice system is the right way when you have allegations of sexual abuse or psychological abuse and everything. These are the good courts, indeed. »
With Tommy Chouinard, The Press