Carter Hart’s return shows hockey’s redemption machine never stops | Vegas Golden Knights

OhOn Thursday, the Vegas Golden Knights announced that goaltender Carter Hart would be joining the team on a professional tryout contract. Hart was one of five former Team Canada players at the World Junior Championship initially charged with sexual assault following an incident in 2018 and, although acquitted earlier this year, remains suspended by the NHL until December 1. In a statement regarding Hart’s contract signing, the Golden Knights said the team remains “committed to the core values ​​that have defined our organization since its inception” and that the team expects “our players to continue to uphold those standards moving forward.”

That sounds all well and good, but there’s a difference between expecting someone to meet a standard and maintaining it – or even enforcing it. It’s no surprise that Hart is back on the ice in the NHL. On the one hand, he was effectively acquitted, along with the other four defendants, which technically constitutes grounds for reincarceration, whether one agrees with the decision or not. For the league, the union and the teams, the story is – or can be – relatively simple: a player cleared by the courts is ready to make his return. But the real reason Hart’s return won’t surprise many people is because that’s how hockey works. In other words, yes, everyone can talk about values, norms and expectations, but in reality, hockey is still driven by silence.

The 2018 sexual assault scandal was neither an isolated nor unprecedented incident. Shortly after the Team Canada story broke, the Canadian Hockey League and its member major junior leagues released the findings of an independent review panel examining its policies on hazing, bullying, harassment and abuse. The committee determined that leagues and their teams have “a systemic culture, or ’embedded culture of behaviors,’ in which off-ice misconduct is perpetuated, tolerated or poorly handled” and that there was a “code of silence” when it came to reporting misconduct. As allegations surrounding the 2018 Team Canada players swirled, it also emerged that Hockey Canada, the country’s national governing body for the sport, paid out $2.9 million in settlements in 2022.

And just a year before that, the same code of silence was exposed when former Chicago Blackhawks player Kyle Beach came forward as the player at the center of sexual abuse allegations against the team in 2010. Beach alleged he had been sexually assaulted by one of the Blackhawks’ video coaches at the time, Brad Aldrich. A follow-up report revealed that although Beach informed the team of his allegation and the information was discussed in a meeting attended by general manager Stan Bowman and head coach Joel Quenneville, nothing happened for three weeks – until the Blackhawks won the Cup.

Just like in Hart’s case, the men at the center of this scandal are gone – but not for long. After leaving his position as general manager in Chicago, Bowman was hired three years later, in 2024, by the Edmonton Oilers and remains general manager there. Quenneville has been back behind the bench since May. He is the head coach of the Anaheim Ducks. It is a model of redemption without counting. As for the moral question, that’s left to the fans. The NHL, and hockey more generally, makes what it might simply call a business decision — even cynically, perhaps, seeing the opportunity in a cut-price contract — and moves on, leaving its fans to sort out the ethics of it all, or do the mental gymnastics of separating the player from the person.

The case of the Team Canada players was ultimately presented as a countdown to hockey. Ultimately, the case itself and the judge’s decision made it difficult to draw a clear line of justice. And so, once again, no accounts. The so-called turning points come and go, the turning points lead to the same place. The behavior, the pattern, remains. A scandal, a moment of reflection, then a quiet reintegration of the players into the hockey ecosystem. The hockey machinery, from development to junior to professional, protects itself. The game progresses and change, when it occurs, seems accidental rather than intentional.

Hart was acquitted, it’s true. Legally, he assumes no criminal responsibility. He has the right to rebuild his career. But what the courts decide and what a sport chooses to celebrate or reward are not the same thing. Nor does acquittal amount to absolution. The acquittal does not undo the power imbalances that shaped the case. And it doesn’t remove the learned behavior that makes these situations seemingly so common — the kind of behavior that teaches young athletes that consent can be negotiable, or that loyalty to a group trumps empathy, or that success is a disinfectant. The defendants in this case were found not guilty, there is no debate. Yet being legally innocent and being ethically fit to play a role are two different things. The court may have had its say, but hockey’s silence, as usual, speaks more eloquently.