Quebec- Four junior hockey players from Quebec have been arrested after the disclosure of a videotape showing one of them having sex with his girlfriend.
The woman, 18, confronted her boyfriend and demanded he give her the tape.
“I was totally ashamed that friends would do that,” she told CTV Montreal.
Her father then took the tape to the Joliette police, and they discovered it included footage of a sordid, sex-and-booze initiation party in the team’s locker room with other women.
The players, aged 17 to 20, are members of the junior AAA L’Action of Joliette, northeast of Montreal.
“They were drinking heavily and committing lewd sexual acts,” alleged the girlfriend’s father.
Her lawyer, Alain Manseau, said the initiation scenes depicted highly degrading sexual acts and the use of feces.
“What you saw on that video is totally unacceptable,” he said.
Quebec provincial police spokeswoman Isabelle Gendron told The Canadian Press no complaint has been filed about the initiation.
But Gendron added the investigation has also led to another young girl, 17, claiming that she was raped.
“The cases are separate,” Gendron told CP. “So the link between all those people is that they are members of the same organization (the hockey team).”
Three of the arrested hockey players will return to court next March — two will face charges of voyeurism and the third will face sexual assault charges.
The Crown has yet to decide if the fourth person will be charged with producing juvenile pornography.
In a further twist, the hockey team’s initial reaction was to threaten the girlfriend’s father with a lawsuit, complaining he had no permission to use the tape.
Now, some players are just trying to downplay the incident.
“It was just a regular initiation party. There was nothing illegal,” said one player.
But sociologist Jamie Bryshun said that even if initiation or hazing rituals don’t break the law, they can still negatively affect the behaviour of players behind locker room doors.
“They’re mimicking a belief system that was used earlier in a type of hazing event,” he said. “They’re just taking it one step further.”
The team’s president said he won’t suspend any players until he reviews the tape, which is currently in the hands of the Quebec police.