Still in turmoil, Hockey Canada is running out of allies. On Friday, one of its most important sponsors, the equipment manufacturer Nike, announced that it had put its relationship with the organization on hold.
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Since 1999, the American company has been one of Hockey Canada’s four largest financial partners.
However, she has decided to dissociate herself from it temporarily while the sports federation still refuses to make major changes within its leaders, despite its criticized management of cases of alleged sexual assault involving hockey players from the national team.
“After analyzing Hockey Canada’s response, we have suspended our relationship with the federation and temporarily halted our support,” read a statement released Friday. We will continue to monitor this situation and await further information regarding Hockey Canada’s action plan.”
“Nike believes that sport should create healthy and safe environments for all athletes. We are deeply concerned about the stories surrounding Hockey Canada. We believe meaningful action is needed to support athletes and transform hockey for future generations.”
Nike has thus joined Esso, TELUS, Tim Hortons, Scotiabank, SkipTheDishes and Sobeys among the companies that have distanced themselves from the organization. On Thursday, Canadian Tire announced that it had severed all ties with Hockey Canada.
Protected Information
It’s been a long day for Hockey Canada. Later, “La Presse” revealed that the federation had fought in court against the Canadian government to prevent it from disclosing financial information deemed sensitive.
In the spring of 2021, following a request for access to information from a citizen, the Department of Canadian Heritage was asked to disclose all of its exchanges with Hockey Canada between 2004 and 2019. Although Canadian Heritage was inclined to comply with this request, the sports federation tried to block this attempt before the courts.
According to Hockey Canada’s plea, this “information could reasonably result in material financial loss to Hockey Canada, or material financial gain to Hockey Canada’s competitors,” according to The Press.
The court’s decision has still not been rendered, but we can guess that the decreasing level of public confidence will not help the cause of Hockey Canada.