Where does hockey go after sex assault trial’s conclusion?

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Guilty or not, the discussion around how young male hockey players — young male athletes in general, really — are spoken to about sexual relations must continue to improve.

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Young hockey players are told they are the best. That if they focus on their craft, the world can be theirs.

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But being the best doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. Being the best does not mean you are excused from ethics, or from your humanity.

Humans have sex for many reasons. Many of us do have it for pleasure. But the way it can be discussed, or taught, in male sports groups, can take on a very different tone. That men and women must consent to sexual acts is essential. Young men must understand that with the pleasure comes consequence — and not just the kind that cries in the night.

I mean the emotional consequences of the act. Even a consensual act changes your relationship with the other person. It absolutely can be a fun exercise — but it is never a throwaway thing. And young athletes must be helped to understand this.

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My friend Corey Hirsch has been around hockey most of his life. He played junior in the Western Hockey League nearly 40 years ago. He played in the NHL in the 1990s and 2000s. He has been a hockey coach and commentator. He spent a year on the Hockey Canada board, hoping to help the game position itself in a more positive way in the lives of its youngest athletes.

He raised two daughters and a son of his own. Now, in his 50s, he’s a grandfather, a mental health advocate and public speaker. He knows hockey well. He is passionate about the values the sport teaches when it’s played and coached properly. But he still hears too many disturbing stories about how young men in hockey are learning to behave toward women.

He has been in those dressing rooms, both as a player and as an authority figure, and he wants everyone to learn how to engage positively with sex. To push back against toxic ideas about what intercourse is.

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“Too often it’s not about the sex. It’s about getting a story for the boys,” he lamented to me, after Justice Maria Carroccia delivered her verdict Thursday, finding that all five of the accused in the Hockey Canada sex assault trial not guilty.

“Sex, it’s glorified,” Hirsch said. “Or it was. What I’m hoping now is we can take glorification out of it. Having sex is a natural, normal thing. It’s not a conquest. But that peer pressure is to be one of the boys, to have a story.”

The authority figures inside the game itself have a duty to improve the conversation. “Hockey Canada and the CHL (Canadian Hockey League, which runs top-level junior hockey in Canada) need to do a better job. Everyone talks about consent, but we need to talk more about consequences too.”

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There are many brave young women and men who have been victims of sexual assault, ready to speak to groups. Young hockey players would do well to hear from them.

“So these guys can see better what (assault) has done to them,” he suggested. Plenty of inappropriate acts take place that never make it to trial. There are still victims, trial or not, guilty or not guilty.

“The tone needs to be about respecting women. Respecting other human beings,” he said.

“There’s nothing cool about this. Verdict or not, this girl, how is she going to live in the town she lives in? She’s forever going to be ‘the girl who …’ The whole thing is so tragic.”

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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