As NHL players face sexual assault charges, media ‘circus’ begins in London,

LONDON, Ont. — The satellite news trucks marked the spots of highest interest on an otherwise quiet and gloomy Monday in downtown London.

They lined up in front of the Queens Avenue entrance to the courthouse before most people had even arrived to work, accompanied by a bank of cameras and reporters producing live hits before the first appearance in court for five members of the 2018 Canadian world junior team charged with sexual assault.

The level of curiosity was not dimmed by the fact that none of Dillon Dubé, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart or Michael McLeod was in attendance. Even their lawyers chose to call into courtroom No. 4 via video for a brief hearing rather than stand before the justice of the peace and a gallery filled almost exclusively with reporters.

“The circus has come to town,” remarked a local, and she wasn’t wrong.

When the hearing was over, the satellite trucks moved south to the convention center on York Street and began setting up shop before the London Police Service was scheduled to give public remarks about the charges for the first time.

Since this story broke in the spring of 2022, it has captivated a hockey-obsessed nation. The fallout reached the highest levels of government, as parliamentary hearings were called amid public outrage over the handling of a civil sexual assault suit involving members of the 2018 Canadian world junior hockey team. Those hearings helped dismantle the upper echelons of Hockey Canada’s management structure and pushed major corporate sponsors out the door. Now, as the case moves toward legal proceedings and a potential trial, the appetite for information has only increased.

At one point during his news conference on Monday, London police chief Thai Truong reminded the media they did not gather to debate the merits of hockey culture.

“I’m not a hockey player. I don’t know (anything) about hockey,” he said. “This is a sexual assault investigation.”

More than 70 media members and a dozen cameras filled the room where Truong read out the charges facing the five men who were all playing professional hockey until surrendering themselves to police in London last month: two counts of sexual assault for McLeod, and one each for Dubé, Foote, Formenton and Hart, stemming from an alleged June 2018 incident inside a room at the Delta London Armouries Hotel following a Hockey Canada gala at which the team had been celebrated for its gold medal win.

Truong apologized to the alleged victim for the length of time it took to make charges in the case.

“I want to extend, on behalf of the London Police Service, my sincerest apology to the victim, to her family, for the amount of time that it has taken to reach this point,” Truong said.

He was standing in the “Salon E” room on the main floor of the London Convention Centre — just down a set of escalators from the ballroom where the Hockey…