A week after the resignation of the commissioner of the Major Junior League of Quebec, Gilles Courteau, his Ontario counterpart, David Branch, of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), remains well in the saddle. Experts see it as proof of the power of the Ontario league and the result of crisis management prior to the league’s pursuit.
David Branch commented little on the lawsuit, which claims that the country’s three junior leagues — located in Quebec, Ontario and Western Canada — maintained a culture of silence that masked a culture of violence. In an affidavit, in November 2021, one of the only times he has spoken on the case, the commissioner suggested that the initiations were due to “the behavior of attackers who acted individually and the behavior specific teams.
The comments, which Brock University sports management professor Taylor McKee calls “disappointing,” did not elicit a reaction from provincial politicians. However, according to the expert, “if he had given this answer in public, his case would be examined more closely”. “That’s the kind of response that allows for abuse,” he says. But David Branch instead continued his work, without being particularly challenged by Queen’s Park.
Ann Pegoraro, research chair in sports management at the University of Guelph, believes David Branch helped himself by commenting on Daniel Carcillo’s story as early as 2018, two years before he launched the lawsuit with two other ex-players. The commissioner then said that he had “dropped” the future complainant. This helped lighten the story in the province. But this one is not over, she said. “What has happened since? she asks herself.
Taylor McKee does not see how Queen’s Park can agree to ask the commissioner the question in a parliamentary committee, as the National Assembly did. Several Ontario MPs, he said, represent areas that have junior teams, the Ford government recently defended the league in another class action lawsuit, and David Branch is said to have won public sympathy for his sometimes progressive positions on player protection.
In a statement, Alan Sakach, spokesperson for Ontario Sport Minister Neil Lumsden, said he could not comment on a case that is currently before the court. But ministry officials are “exploring the possibility of creating an independent body that could receive and review allegations of abuse or mistreatment”.
Influential commissioner
David Branch has been at the helm of the OHL for 42 years, five years longer than Gilles Courteau. He was also president of the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) — the organization that oversees the three junior leagues in the country — from 1996 to 2019. “In 42 years, he probably made friends in several communities,” says Taylor McKee of Brock University. “He went through everything,” adds Professor Pegoraro.
This includes a lawsuit filed against the CHL in 2014 that sought to have players recognized that the players were in fact employees. The lawsuit was finally settled in May 2020, a month before the second lawsuit was launched. In the first, David Branch, who opposed this recognition, had the support of the province. The Ontario government, says Taylor McKee, may not want to lose an ally by putting it in the spotlight because of the incentives.
During his four decades in office, David Branch has also made progressive decisions on player safety, an approach that may earn him a more favorable opinion from the public, Taylor McKee thinks. In 2012, the OHL became the first major junior league in the country to limit players to 10 fights. In 2016, the cap rose to 3, while in Quebec it still stood at 10 fights, although the league hinted that fights would soon be banned.
A “mafia”
Laurel Walzak, director of the sports media program at Metropolitan University of Toronto, doesn’t understand why the Ontario government hasn’t intervened more in hockey issues recently. Last summer, the Toronto professor and 27 other academics sent a letter to the federal minister of sport, among others, asking Canadian politicians to do more about violence and sexual abuse in hockey.
“Children and young adults continue to experience violence,” says Laurel Walzak. It would be nice if the OHL came out and said, “We’re reforming a lot of things,” but we don’t see it. Do those in power in Ontario fear the power of sport? “I don’t know,” replies Laurel Walzak. But sport is influential, she continues. “Hockey, the way it’s governed, is like a mafia. It’s the stereotype of a mafia. »
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.