Winnipeg Free Press
Opinion
After reading “A Stain on our Game” by Jeff Hamilton, I felt that I needed and wanted to share my views on the six-part article. I feel strongly that this story has critical teachings in it from which we all can learn.
The life and destructive legacy of Graham James
After reading A Stain on our Game by Jeff Hamilton, I felt that I needed and wanted to share my views on the six-part article. I feel strongly that this story has critical teachings in it from which we all can learn.
What really hit close to home for me, again, was Jay Macaulay. I saw myself and so many others who have suffered significant trauma in their lives in Jay. I was there, and I was there for a long time, and it’s brutal. The important part, which I know now, is that there is a way out, and the opportunity to get your power and your life back.
Winnipeg Free Press
The life and destructive legacy of Graham James
Twenty-five games into the Swift Current Broncos’ 1993-94 season, Darren McLean had reached his breaking point.
Days earlier, star forward Todd Holt had revealed a litany of horrors that he endured for years at the hands of their coach, Graham James.
The two players, who had been friends since playing minor hockey together in Estevan, Sask., were rooming together for the first time on a Broncos road trip.
About this series
Graham James was last seen in a courtroom in the summer of 2015.
Appearing via video link from a Quebec prison, the disgraced junior hockey coach pleaded guilty in a Swift Current courtroom to sexual assault on one of his players during the early 1990s, and was sentenced to two additional years behind bars.
The tournament
A repeat after winning gold in 1993 may have seemed unlikely at the time considering Canada had only won back-to-back world junior titles just once in the tournament s history.
The odds seemed to be stacked against this group, too. Canada had five eligible returnees unavailable for the tournament because the NHL came calling: Paul Kariya, Chris Pronger, Chris Gratton, Alexandre Daigle, and Rob Niedermayer. This tournament was a true test of the nation s depth.
Canada got off to a decent start, neutralizing Switzerland with a 5-1 victory to open the tournament before taking down Germany 5-2. Wider margins of victory were ideal against lesser opponents considering goal differential was used as the tiebreaker in this tournament - it s how Canada previously won in 1985 despite sharing an identical 5-0-2 record with Czechoslovakia.