An independent appeal board confirmed this week that four of the five former Canadian world junior hockey players acquitted last year of sexual assault will remain suspended from Hockey Canada programs, even though the criminal case against them is closed. A fifth player was reinstated immediately.
The board found that Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Carter Hart and Cal Foote breached Hockey Canada's code of conduct and upheld suspensions that now run on a staggered schedule: Foote until Nov. 10, 2026; Hart until Nov. 10, 2027; Dubé until Nov. 10, 2028; and McLeod until Nov. 10, 2030. Alex Formenton, the fifth player named in the case, had his suspension lifted and can immediately return to Hockey Canada-sanctioned activity.
The case dates to June 2018, when the five players, then members of Canada's world junior team, were accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a London, Ontario, hotel room following a Hockey Canada gala. All five were charged, and in July 2025, Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia acquitted them, ruling that prosecutors had not proven the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt. This week's ruling came from a separate track: an internal disciplinary process, decided by a three-person panel of retired judges — John Laskin, Katherine Swinton and Thomas McEwen. Hockey Canada has declined to release the panel's written reasoning, saying confidentiality terms set in 2018 bar it from disclosing which provisions of the code were breached or by whom.
No statement from the complainant or her legal representatives accompanied the decision. Formenton's lawyer, Daniel Brown, said in response that his client "has spent much of his adult life living under the shadow of these false sexual-assault accusations." The NHL, addressing the underlying case after the 2025 acquittals, had called the allegations "very disturbing" even though they were not found to be criminal.
The suspensions bar the four players from representing Canada internationally, coaching or otherwise participating in Hockey Canada programs, but do not affect their NHL careers, which players such as Hart had already resumed after the league cleared them to play. Hockey Canada said any player later considered for a national team would first face an "enhanced screening process," including third-party review of the findings tied to the 2018 team, before being allowed to represent the country again.