A composite image of five photographs show former members of Canada’s 2018 World Juniors hockey team, left to right, Alex Formenton, Cal Foote, Michael McLeod, Dillon Dube and Carter Hart as they individually arrived to court in London, Ont., Wednesday, April 30, 2025.Nicole Osborne/The Canadian Press
The woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted by five members of the winning 2018 world junior hockey team has begun testifying in the players’ criminal trial in London, Ont.
The now 27-year-old, known publicly as E.M., said she was a 20-year-old university student having a night out in a London bar when she met Mike McLeod, the lead suspect in the case, around midnight.
“I learned that his name was Mikey,” E.M. testified. She said Mr. McLeod bought her several shots of alcohol and that she consumed more than 10 drinks over the course of the night. “I definitely felt like my inhibitions were lowered.”
E.M., whose name is protected by a publication ban, testified via a closed circuit room in the court complex outside of the courtroom. She said she went to the bar, Jack’s, with female co-workers, but that she spent much of her time with Mr. McLeod.
E.M. said that when she went dancing with Mr. McLeod, she was surrounded on the floor by other men whom she later learned were his hockey teammates.
“It felt uncomfortable — they were taking turns dancing with me,” E.M. told the court. She said some of the men circled around her and pressed into her and that “they would move my hands to touch their crotch area.”
Two professional hockey players have testified that Mr. McLeod invited them to his hotel room to receive oral sex from E.M. later that night.
Boris Katchouk, who plays for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League, told a jury Friday that he had no sexual contact with anyone on the evening in June 2018, when the alleged offence occurred. But he said he saw Mr. McLeod in a hotel hallway shortly after 2 a.m., after a night of out at a bar, following a Hockey Canada gala celebrating their championship win.
Mr. Katchouk testified that Mr. McLeod asked him if he wanted oral sex.
Mr. McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Carter Hart, Cal Foote and Alex Formenton are each accused of sexually assaulting E.M. in the hotel room. Mr. McLeod also faces a second charge of being a party to sexual assault.
Each of the players has pleaded not guilty.
Neither Mr. Raddysh nor Mr. Katchouk is accused of any wrongdoing. Mr. Katchouk told the court he only he briefly entered Mr. McLeod’s room.
“As I entered the room there was a woman lying on the bed,” he testified.
Mr. Katchouk told the court he was intoxicated that night and found it hard to recall details. He said he, Mr. McLeod, and E.M. were the only people in the room at the time and the woman was under the covers with blankets up to her shoulders.
Mr. Katchouk told the jury he did not know whether the woman was wearing clothes. He testified that he left the room within two minutes.
Mr. Katchouk said he spoke to E.M. briefly when Mr. McLeod left the room. He testified that the woman asked him for a bite of a slice of pizza.
Mr. Katchouk testified that Mr. McLeod returned to the room with another former teammate player, Taylor Raddysh. Mr. Katchouk said the three players talked briefly together before he and Mr. Raddysh, who now plays for the Washington Capitals, left. “Raddysh just said, ‘Hey Bo let’s get out of here,’ ” Mr. Katchouk said.
When prosecutor Meaghan Cunningham asked him whether the woman was part of that conversation, Mr. Katchouk said, “she was not, no.”
Mr. Raddysh, who testified on Thursday and Friday, also said that Mr. McLeod also invited him into the hotel room and offered him oral sex from E.M. Prosecutors showed the court text messages that Mr. Raddysh said he exchanged with Mr. McLeod. He said he also left the room after only a few moments.
Mr. Katchouk and Mr. Raddysh both told the court they had trouble recalling details from the night of the alleged offence.
At the start of the trial on Monday, Crown Attorney Heather Donkers said the case will challenge the public’s understanding of what constitutes sexual assault, telling the jury that the evidence “may not match up with expectations you have about what a sexual assault is or looks like.”
Prosecutors have presented texts and videos in court that allegedly came from Mr. McLeod’s phone as part of a detailed timeline of events surrounding the alleged assault, including security-camera footage from a local bar where they say E.M. met Mr. McLeod.
During her opening address to the jury on Monday, Ms. Donkers said E.M. left the bar with Mr. McLeod and went to his hotel room, where they had consensual sex.
But Ms. Donkers said the complainant did not consent to what happened later as more people were invited into the room, and that at one point “there were up to 10 men inside the standard-sized hotel room.”
“She was going along with what the men in the room wanted and what she felt they expected of her,” Ms. Donkers said.