Three Stories You Missed (1/28/25)
This article is NSFW and contains two stories about sexual assault.
A new study has been published in the National Library of Medicine. This study looked at whether there’s any correlation between how long one plays ice hockey and getting CTE. According to the results, 42 of the 77 donors (54.5%) did, including 27 of 28 professional players. A quick run-down of further results:
Of players who played less than 13 years, only 19% had CTE.
51% of those who played for 13 to 23 years had CTE.
Meanwhile, 95% of those who played for 23 or more years had CTE.
This is obviously not good news for those running the NHL as they would prefer to stick their heads in the sand and repeatedly deny playing hockey can cause CTE. This is also not good news for players as this means that they aren’t being adequately protected. It’s long past time that major changes be made to help prevent hockey players from getting CTE.
Earlier this month, a Minnesota woman, Allison Schardin (39 years old), was sentenced to five years of probation for sexually assaulting two teenage hockey players. According to WCCO News, that wasn’t all she received:
Other conditions of Schardin's sentencing include 200 hours of community service, no contact with the victims, no unsupervised contact with any boys, mandatory mental health treatment, and registration as a predatory offender for 10 years. The court also ordered her to serve two more weekends in jail.
This sexual assault happened last January in Colorado when she, her husband, and two children were vacationing in Colorado. They were staying at a hotel and she met the boys in a hot tub there. She told them that she was having marital problems and got contact information from them.
Later that evening she texted one of them after a fight with her husband, asking if she could come to their room. When she came to their room, she told them that they were young enough to be her kids, and then pressured them into sex acts. A third boy was in the room and saw this go down.
The next day, she found where they were playing a game and went to the rink. One of the boys got nervous and started shaking on the bench. After that, the boys went back home, and she texted them, telling them not to tell the authorities what happened. She also apologized to one of them for going to their room.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that after the boys reported her to the authorities, they suffered:
“They have lost friends, and they have had to endure whispers and harmful comments from others as if they were the perpetrators,” the prosecutors wrote. “Both victims were initially suspended from their hockey team, though they were later reinstated after they explained what happened. That victory was short-lived, however, as team officials then decided to cancel the rest of the season.”
Legal arguments are being made this week in the case of the 5 members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior Championship team. Unfortunately, we do not know what is being said in these hearings, or the ones from the fall, due to a publication ban. A jury trial will begin on April 22.
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