An independent appeal board’s confirmation that five members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior hockey team breached Hockey Canada’s code of conduct reveals the need for greater transparency in the review process, says a Brock University expert.

“There is a strange contradiction at the heart of this decision, which is that Hockey Canada has imposed serious consequences, but Canadians are still not allowed to know why,” says Assistant Professor of Sport Management Taylor McKee.

Last week, Hockey Canada shared the appeal board’s findings that five players breached the code of conduct of the sport’s national governing body. Four of the players — Cal Foote, Carter Hart, Dillon Dube and Michael McLeod — will remain suspended from Hockey Canada-sanctioned programs on staggered timelines through 2030, while the fifth player, Alex Formenton, was reinstated immediately.

With Hockey Canada citing confidentiality requirements under the procedures that were in place when the investigation began, the reasoning behind the appeal board’s conclusions remain confidential. While that reasoning may explain the secrecy, McKee says it is not compatible with an organization now promising transparency.

“We do not know what specific conduct was attributed to each player, how the board distinguished between them or why one player was reinstated immediately while another remains suspended until 2030,” he says. “I have sincere sympathy for the position that Hockey Canada is in, but I don’t think Canadians are in the mood to be giving the benefit of the doubt to hockey institutions.”

McKee notes that while a criminal acquittal determines whether the Crown proved a criminal offence beyond a reasonable doubt, Hockey Canada has a separate obligation to decide what conduct is compatible with representing the country.

But, as he sees it, accountability is not punishment without explanation.

“The public cannot judge whether these sanctions are proportionate, whether the same standards will be applied in future cases or whether any institutional failures were considered,” he says.

McKee, whose research examines hockey culture, sport policy and the broader social and political dimensions of sport in Canada, says Hockey Canada is not an ordinary sport organization. Its role governing a game that Canadians invest extraordinary cultural meaning, public money and trust in means it should be loudly inviting — not objecting to — the highest standard of scrutiny, he says.

“Leadership matters most when a decision is unpopular. If Hockey Canada believes confidentiality prevents it from releasing the appeal board’s report, it should explain that limitation as fully as possible,” he says.

Canadians are being asked to applaud accountability largely on faith, and while McKee concedes that may be better than no consequences, he says it falls well short of the transparent system Hockey Canada claims to be building.

“Real cultural reform would mean explaining decisions to the fullest extent possible while still protecting legitimate privacy interests.”