As Dillon Dubé faces charges in the 2018 Hockey Canada case, the real question isn’t just who’s guilty, but how this system protected them for so long.

When former NHLer Dillon Dubé was charged in connection to the 2018 Hockey Canada sexual assault case, the headlines framed it as a long-overdue reckoning. A verdict is expected as early as July 24, and many are hoping it marks a turning point. But real accountability doesn’t stop with individual charges—it starts when we ask how this could happen at all.

This case isn’t a one-off. It’s part of a pattern—where power is protected, victims are silenced, and institutions are shielded from scrutiny. For years, Hockey Canada used secret funds to settle sexual assault claims, often involving high-profile players. These weren’t just hush payments; they were structural tools used to maintain a pristine image ogf the sport, one that prioritizes brand over justice.

That image—Canada’s “golden boys” on the ice—has long relied on exclusion and silence. Indigenous players, women, queer people, and survivors of abuse have often been pushed to the margins or left entirely invisible. Behind the national pride lies a culture built on domination, impunity, and a specific kind of masculinity that celebrates aggression and dismisses vulnerability.

The sport’s culture didn’t just allow abuse, it created the conditions for it. Hazing rituals, locker room silence, and unchecked power dynamics between coaches, players, and institutions have allowed violence to flourish, particularly against those with the least protection.

And for Indigenous youth recruited into elite programs far from their communities, the dangers are even greater: isolated, dependent, and exposed to systems that care more about winning than well-being.

Transforming hockey means more than just putting more Indigenous players on the ice or adding diverse faces to leadership roles—though those things matter. It means shifting the values of the game itself. It means no longer tolerating silence around abuse. It means confronting the systems that have treated survivors as liabilities and perpetrators as assets. And it means acknowledging that what has been framed as tradition has too often been a cover for harm.

What would that transformation look like? Survivors must be at the center—not silenced by legal threats or institutional fear. Leadership must be accountable to the communities the sport claims to represent, especially those long pushed out or harmed. The culture must change from the ground up, with education, transparency, and a rejection of the win-at-all-costs mentality that has excused so much violence.

If the July 24 verdict becomes just another headline—another brief moment of public outrage before business as usual—it will only reinforce the very systems that enabled this in the first place. But if we use this moment to question who the sport is for, who it protects, and who it harms, there’s a chance to build something better.

This isn’t just about one player, or one case. It’s about deciding what kind of future we want for hockey—and whether we’re finally ready to stop protecting the game at the expense of those it’s hurt the most.