A former pro hockey player who said his NHL career was cut short because of sexual abuse inflicted by a childhood coach has been awarded $605,000 by the B.C. Supreme Court.
The 35-year-old Victoria businessman, who was good enough to be drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs, sued for damages in civil court resulting from two sexual assaults when he was 13 carried out by former coach Richard Hall.
Justice Dev Dley ruled in a written judgment that the assaults and their impact -drinking, dysfunction and mental health difficulties -damaged the man's National Hockey League career, specifically the loss of a first three-year contract with the NHL.
The judge awarded a total of $605,000, covering everything from loss of money from that first contract, about $372,000, to $4,500 for future psychotherapy.
Hall, a former Oak Bay Minor Hockey Association coach, had also abused two other minor hockey players, who later successfully sued the provincial government. The judge in that case ruled Hall's probation officer was negligent in the fulfilment of his duties and that the provincial government, as the probation officer's employer, was liable.
The probation officer had a duty to inform the minor hockey association that Hall had been convicted in 1984 of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy and had been sentenced to two years' probation.
However, the association was not told and Hall went on to sexually abuse more players, including the man who successfully sued the provincial government this week.
Hall assaulted the man twice in the summer of 1988, including oral and anal intercourse. The assaults left the boy, who had been close to the coach, feeling betrayed, angry and ashamed.
He disclosed the assaults in 1989, after other sexual assaults by Hall were publicized.
The player carried on with hockey, his lawyer Doug Thompson said, although he experienced an undercurrent of anger when he walked into a rink, found it difficult to trust another coach and had difficulty forming relationships. In Grade 10, he discovered alcohol.
By Grade 11, he had drawn the eye of U.S. universities and the Western Hockey League.
He completed Grade 12 playing in the WHL, though he felt anger and a lack of emotional control on the ice, Dley wrote.
He drew the attention of the Maple Leafs when he was 17 and was drafted by them.
In the years before and shortly after, he still lashed out on the ice, and had numerous drunken binges. By early 1995, he had bottomed out, Dley said, and it was only then that he told his team managers about the abuse.
He was counselled that year and had the best year of his junior career.
However, his career did not lead to the NHL. In June 1995, the Leafs told him they would not offer him a contract. He played hockey for several more years in the American Hockey League and the East Coast Hockey League, both below the NHL.
The judge ruled that the main impact was the loss of a first contract with an NHL team.
Read the Supreme Court decision here
