Jr. A owner asks Ontario court to overturn Hockey Canada suspension

An Ontario Junior A hockey team owner is asking an Ontario Superior Court judge in Ottawa to overturn his two-and-and-a-half-year suspension, which was levied by Hockey Canada’s Independent Third Party (ITP) after two separate misconduct complaints accused him of bullying players and mismanaging team finances.

Alex Armstrong, the owner, general manager and head coach of the Pembroke Lumber Kings of the Central Canada Hockey League (CCHL), was also accused in complaints to Hockey Canada of consuming alcohol on the team bench, pressuring players to attend “optional” skills development sessions that cost between $1,000 and $4,000, seeking money from players’ parents by intimidating players, threatening to “bury them” by taking away their ice time, and failing to supervise his team adequately, which led to instances of hazing.

Armstrong has been suspended through the 2026-27 hockey season, a sanction that will effectively sideline him from junior hockey for two and a half years. While he was originally sanctioned Feb. 17, 2025, Hockey Canada’s ITP issued stiffer penalties on Dec. 5 after it received two videos that purported to show Armstrong violating the terms of his suspension, Armstrong’s lawyer, Trent Morris, told TSN in an interview.

Morris called Armstrong’s sanction “punitive” and said he plans during the legal process to ask a judge to order Hockey Canada to hand over all of the ITP’s discipline decisions for misconduct so there is clarity about how penalties have been levied against other offenders.

“When we are asking questions about whether sanctions are reasonable, there’s nowhere to even look,” Morris said. “It’s the same with provincial regulators where there is this star chamber where the privileged people go free and other people who they don’t like get thrown in the dust bin. I believe sunlight is a disinfectant. All of these sanctions by Hockey Canada should be made public. Hockey Canada wants to do things the way they used to do things. They just do it now under the cloak of the ITP.

“Hockey Canada gets these videos and just says, ‘Okay, we found that you violated your sanction, so you’re kicked out for an additional year. He’s already suspended. It’s as if they’re admitting there’s no possible way they can get to this before September [2026]. What would be the possible harm of giving Alex an appropriate hearing? It’s absurd.”

Hockey Canada has not yet filed its response to Armstrong’s court filing.

Armstrong’s suspension is posted on the website of Hockey Eastern Ontario, an organization that supervises the CCHL.

Armstrong has been told not to directly or indirectly engage in any communication, instruction, or supervision of players, team officials, or on-ice officials. He is also prevented from coaching, assisting, or acting in any leadership capacity in any on-ice or off-ice team activities, practices, games, or competitions, as well as any player evaluations, tryouts, selection, or roster decisions.

Armstrong said in a notice of application filed in Ontario Superior Court on Oct. 14 that the two misconduct complaints against him were retaliatory, driven by disgruntled parents and three players seeking trades, and that the investigation process was fundamentally unfair. It’s unclear when the court will hear his case, Morris said.

“One player was seeking a trade because he needed to move away from playing in Pembroke as he was facing serious issues over the distribution of a video,” Armstrong’s court filing said. “The other two eventually sought trades because they were not playing the amount that they wished. One of the players eventually (now) played in Junior C. The other plays in Junior B on a team owned by his father. In the case of the parents of two of these players, either Armstrong’s wife or he was threatened with the complaints process if he did not cooperate with trades to where they wished to play.”

Morris said that the CCHL’s owners voted at the end of September to suspend the Lumber Kings organization because the team has $55,000 in fines that have not been paid. Armstrong is appealing that decision, Morris said.

Armstrong’s disciplinary process began Feb. 23, 2023, when an anonymous complainant filed a complaint about him with Hockey Canada.

Hockey Canada’s ITP accepted jurisdiction on May 16, 2023, and appointed investigator Paul Gee to probe the allegations.

On Jan. 18, 2024, a parent of a player on the Lumber Kings filed a second complaint against Armstrong, alleging that he bullied players during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons and used team or league money for his personal gain.

By mid-2024, investigation reports in both matters had been completed. In February 2025, adjudicator Kathleen Simmons was commissioned by Hockey Canada to determine appropriate sanctions against Armstrong.

After his initial suspension of one and a half seasons, Armstrong appealed to the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC), where an arbitrator upheld the sanction in a Sept. 12 decision.

Two months later, after video evidence established Armstrong had breached his sanction conditions, Simmons determined he should be suspended from his coaching duties until a day before the 2026-27 hockey season.

While the SDRCC decision did not detail which allegations against Armstrong were considered credible, Morris said that the adjudicator in the case determined allegations that Armstrong pressured families to pay more money to ensure ice time for their children were credible.

The adjudicator also confirmed an investigator’s finding that Armstrong pressured a player to play through a broken collarbone and subsequently failed to provide adequate medical care, Morris said.

However, allegations related to Armstrong’s supposed drinking alcohol on the bench and driving while under the influence were not supported by evidence, Morris said. The allegation Armstrong did not supervise players and created a climate for hazing was similarly unsupported by evidence, Morris said.

“In terms of hazing, what we are talking about was a fine jar where players had to pay a few dollars if they did something wrong,” Morris said. “The senior players started it and when Alex learned of it, he stopped it.”

A central issue throughout Armstrong’s case and appeal was anonymity. Armstrong argued he could not fairly defend himself without knowing the identities of complainants and certain witnesses, particularly where credibility findings were decisive. Hockey Canada’s ITP also refused to hand over to Armstrong the specific evidence provided by witnesses in the case, and only offered generalized statements, Morris said.

“The whole ITP process is absurd,” Morris said. “There’s no procedural process. It’s the wild west. The ITP has relied on anonymous witnesses, allowing them to retain anonymity because of concerns about reprisals. Well, some of the players who would have been on Alex’s team in 2022, when this behaviour was alleged to have happened, have already aged out of junior hockey. It’s not like Alex is going to cut them from a team, right?”

The SDRCC arbitrator determined in its September decision that Hockey Canada’s policies explicitly permit anonymous complaints and that lifting anonymity would risk deterring future complainants.