A request for authorization of class action was filed Wednesday morning at the Montreal courthouse against the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (LHJMQ), its 18 current teams and the Canadian Hockey League, learned The Press. The action targets “all hockey players who suffered abuse while they were minors and were playing” within the QMJHL from 1969 to the present day.
Former Chicoutimi Saguenéens player Carl Latulippe is the main plaintiff in the class action, filed by Kugler Kandestin. The Press presented in early April the story of this first-round pick of the Chicoutimi Saguenéens in 1994.
Carl Latulippe recounted having been the victim of several abuses by certain veterans among the Saguenéens, in particular violence, intimidation and assault. In the class action request, we learn that Mr. Latulippe was also the victim of abuse with the Voltigeurs de Drummondville. There, Mr. Latulippe and other 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”, can we read in the legal process. Mr. Latulippe would have notably witnessed “a teammate who was caught by a veteran who inserted a hanger in his anus, causing him to tear”.
After leaving the Voltigeurs, where he played for a year, Carl Latulippe moved to the Harfangs de Beauport where he was not the victim of abuse according to the procedure. In the class action request, we can read that Mr. Latulippe would have suffered various consequences of this abuse, in particular anxiety and consumption problems. He “has never been able to set foot in a hockey arena again” and he “does not want his son to play hockey, lest he suffer the same abuse that he experienced”, can we read.
Coaches on the bus
The appeal also comes back to the passage of Carl Latulippe with the Saguenéens. It is mentioned in particular that during training camp in 1994-1995, “during an exhibition hockey game in Chibougamau (Carl Latulippe) was the victim of sexual violence by his veteran teammates on the bus bringing them back to Chicoutimi, while coaches were on the bus, were aware of what was happening, did not stop the abuse and, through their inaction, sent the message that this abuse was permitted, that abusers do not would not be punished, and that the recruits had no choice but to endure them”.
We can also read that “the veterans forced the recruits, of which he was one, to undress in the back of the bus, masturbate and ejaculate within a given period of time, otherwise they would have to spend the rest of the trip, or at least part of it, naked in the toilets”.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Carl Latulippe
According to the procedure, Carl Latulippe would have complained about his situation to the coach of the time who would have told him that “we had to endure these behaviors, that they only lasted a year and that it formed the character” .
Mr. Latulippe is claiming $650,000 from the defendants. And $15,000,000 in punitive and collective exemplary damages are also sought at this stage.
Former teams also targeted
In addition to the QMJHL and its 18 teams, the Canadian Hockey League is also subject to the class action claim as the “governing body of junior hockey in Canada”. All the former QMJHL teams are also named in the appeal, including the Bisons de Granby and the Castors de Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. “At all times when the teams mentioned above existed and were in operation, the players playing there were also under the responsibility of the defendant QMJHL,” it is written.
All of these actors “had an obligation to protect Class members and ensure their well-being, witnessed the abuse, encouraged, neglected, tolerated, covered up or ignored it” and “did not taken the necessary measures to protect the members of the Class,” reads the court document.
“These abusive behaviors have existed for years among current and former QMJHL teams and are still present to this day” and the case of Carl Latulippe “is only one example among many others”, is it also writing.
Lawyer David Stolow of Kugler Kandestin believes that “it is high time that underage QMJHL players have access to justice for the abuse they have systematically suffered”. “It is important to us that those who have suffered this abuse know that there is a way to pursue justice. They can communicate with us free of charge and in the strictest confidentiality to discuss their rights,” says Ms.e Stolow.
Parallel to Ontario
The filing of the class action in Quebec comes while in Ontario, a judge rejected in February a request for class action filed by three plaintiffs on behalf of the 15,000 former Canadian junior hockey players, notably in the QMJHL.
The Ontario judge, however, opened the door to individual appeals. Lawyer James Sayce of the Koskie Minsky firm, which represents former Canadian players, including former QMJHL player Stephen Quirk in this case, must express his intentions for the future of things very soon. The Quebec class action request filed on Wednesday also provides that all players who choose to participate in an individual action in connection with the procedure in Ontario will be excluded from the Quebec procedure.