When Legal Verdicts Don’t Close the Cultural Gap — A Restitution Project Response to the Hockey Canada Trial Outcome

Acquittals in the Junior Hockey trial are not the end of the story,

In July 2025, five former members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior hockey team were acquitted of sexual assault charges in a case that had already shaken the foundations of Hockey Canada and captured the attention of the nation. The judge ruled that the Crown had not met the threshold of proof beyond a reasonable doubt—a standard that protects the innocent, yes, but also often fails to account for the realities of sexual violence.

For many, the decision landed like a second blow.

This case was never just about a single night in a hotel room. It was about a system—one that too often fails survivors, shields institutions, and leaves the public grappling with a deeper question: If this isn’t assault, then what is? How do we reconcile the gap between what survivors experience and what the legal system can—or will—recognize?

This question is central to our work at The Restitution Project. Our mission is not to judge verdicts, but to interpret what peaceful resolution and accountability can mean when institutional validation falls short. This case spotlights why civil and restorative frameworks are essential complements to criminal law.

Restitution is not only for courts

While criminal acquittals hinge on proof beyond a reasonable doubt, restorative justice allows survivors and communities to reclaim agency, articulate harms, and shape outcomes outside rigid legal binaries. Whether or not a court finds fault, individuals deserve platforms to be heard, acknowledged, and validated. That is justice, too.

The legal system was never designed to hold every kind of harm. Especially not the harm that lives in silence. Or in what trauma experts now understand as “fawning”—a survival response often mistaken for consent. Or in the compliance that comes from fear, isolation, or the calculated self-preservation that so many victims are forced to rely on in the moment.

Silence is not consent. It never has been.

Culture change must traverse beyond resignations and settlement funds

In the wake of this case, Hockey Canada responded with board resignations, a freeze on government funding, and the loss of major sponsors. On paper, those moves looked like accountability. But culture does not shift with headlines. It shifts when systems recognize how power operates—how entitlement, male dominance, and institutional loyalty can create conditions where young men feel invincible and young women feel disposable.

We must ask harder questions. Not just about who knew what, and when. But about why these dynamics keep repeating. And what we’re willing to do to stop them.

Restitution pathways offer opportunities to foster real transformation

At The Restitution Project, we advocate for solutions rooted in accountability and repair. Some of the ways forward include:

• Dialogue circles where survivors can share experiences directly with consent educators, sport officials, and policy leaders—creating space for acknowledgment, education, and growth.

• Equity audits to examine how membership fees, reserve funds, and governance structures uphold or hinder a culture of safety.

• Mental health supports and trauma-informed training across all levels of sport—so that young athletes, staff, and survivors are better protected and better heard.

• Independent reporting mechanisms that are survivor-centered, culturally safe, and fully separate from institutional interests.
  

To survivors: We believe you

To the survivor at the heart of this case: we believe you. We believe your story matters, regardless of what the court said. You showed courage, not only by coming forward but by enduring the public scrutiny, media commentary, and the emotional cost of a process designed around someone else’s threshold of truth.

To others watching—especially those with similar stories: please don’t let this verdict convince you that your experience isn’t valid. A courtroom may require certainty. Humanity requires compassion.

What comes next?

The verdict may mark the end of this criminal trial. But it is not the end of the story. The case revealed the limits of legal justice. Now we need to turn our attention to relational and cultural justice—to the kind of change that doesn’t hinge on one decision, but on many courageous acts of truth-telling, listening, and transformation.

At The Restitution Project, we will continue to push for systemic change. For transparency. For laws that serve people, not institutions. And for a culture where survivors don’t have to choose between staying silent and being shattered.

This moment calls for something greater than judgment. It calls for restoration.