Scott Stinson: Hockey Canada again insists that change at the top isn’t required

Members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage could be forgiven for wondering how it is possible that they are still asking for Hockey Canada’s executives to resign.

In politics, resignations tend to happen quickly once a story has reached a certain level of unpleasantness. The SNC-Lavalin scandal took down a senior aide to the Prime Minister and the country’s top bureaucrat, even as both denied wrongdoing, to limit further distractions. A decade ago a Cabinet minister resigned because she stayed in a fancy hotel and billed for a $16 orange juice. It comes with the job: sometimes you must fall on the sword. The same can be true outside business. Rogers replaced its chief technology officer in July after a day-long service outage; does anyone imagine that the fellow was personally responsible for failing to flick a big ‘ON’ switch in the morning?

And yet, there are Hockey Canada’s leaders, fires raging around them, acting like they have no idea where all this smoke is coming from.

1. Hockey Canada brass stuns MPs by telling committee the organization is a victim of 'cynical attacks'

2. Scott Stinson: A judicial inquiry into junior hockey might get the answers MPs haven't

Andrea Skinner, the interim chair of the board of Hockey Canada, told MPs on Tuesday that its directors don’t “share the view that Hockey Canada should make more leadership changes at this time.” She gave her backing to chief executive Scott Smith and the rest of the senior leadership team, insisting that the organization needs to remain “stable” even as it undergoes needed change.

During an appearance on videoconference that was combative and at times surprisingly adversarial, given the general mood toward Hockey Canada these days, Skinner said changes at the top will not be made, seemingly no matter who demands it, until a governance review is completed. She also disputed some of the reporting around Hockey Canada’s recent scandals as “substantial misinformation” and generally gave off the air of someone digging in their heels in response to unfair criticism. At various points, she said that issues of mistreatment of women are a “societal problem” and that “we need to not just sit back and condemn hockey.” Given that Hockey Canada hired a crisis PR firm after this scandal first broke, it appears that no one is advising the organization to adopt a contrite or conciliatory tone.

It’s not like the national sport organization doesn’t have reasons to be contrite. There were the revelations that it had quickly settled a lawsuit alleging a group sexual assault after a 2018 Hockey Canada gala, an incident it had briefly investigated four years ago and then ignored until the lawsuit was filed this past spring. There were allegations of another group sexual assault from 2003, which it says it didn’t know about until recently. There was the disclosure, via a news report, of the National Equity Fund, money collected in part from grassroots hockey registration fees that was used for purposes that included quietly and quickly settling sexual assault claims. And now the Globe and Mail has reported the existence of a second financial reserve, the comically vague Participants Legacy Trust Fund. It was an offshoot of the National Equity Fund and its millions were also set aside for purposes that included the potential settling of sexual abuse claims. A slush fund derived from a slush fund, then.

There was a point long ago when resignations seemed inevitable. This story has now gone so far past that point that it has circled the Earth and arrived back at the start again. And yet, Skinner was using all the rhetorical shields and metaphorical roadblocks she could muster to counter the idea of Hockey Canada resignations or dismissals, stating that the board feared the type of tumult that could happen should certain executives be replaced on short notice. “Will the lights stay on in the rink? I don’t know,” she asked, in the apparent belief that the whole of the country’s hockey apparatus could be torn asunder if there were high-level changes at Hockey Canada. Would the Zambonis still work? Would children be able to tie their skates? Would Sidney Crosby still know how to shoot?

There was, at least, a slight hint that the board once considered making changes. Michael Brind’Amour, who resigned as board chair in August, said there were internal discussions about replacing senior executives, but they agreed to keep everyone in place. Several attempts to draw him out on whether he felt that was the correct decision were made, but Brind’Amour repeatedly declined to offer his opinion on that, saying it was a board decision that was taken. After which he resigned. The reader is free to consider the implications.

Skinner said at one point that she didn’t claim to know whether the public wants leadership change at Hockey Canada, even as member after member of the committee asked it, after the Minister of Sport has demanded it and the Prime Minister has suggested it, and after members of the Canadian national women’s hockey team have called for it.

It is truly a heroic bit of defence given the various turns in the story, especially when a leadership change seems like such an obvious starting point. But, no. Instead the message from Hockey Canada was that its current leadership, the same one around for much of this mess, will sort things out. Asked if she could give Smith, the chief executive, a letter grade for the job he has done so far, Skinner noted that he’s been working amid difficult circumstances.

Then she gave him an A.

It neatly summed up where things stand.

Postmedia News

sstinson@postmedia.com

Check out our sports section for the latest news and analysis. Care for a wager? Head to our sports betting section for news and odds.