The Carolina Hurricanes are exploring whether to sign center Michael McLeod, WRAL Sports has learned. McLeod is one of five hockey players, members of Canada’s 2018 world junior team, accused of sexual assault in an encounter that took place in a London, Ontario, hotel room in the early hours of June 19, 2018.

Show Transcript

So the Carolina Hurricanes, like any team, are always looking to get better. Their latest efforts are getting some people concerned though. The Canes are looking into signing Michael McLeod. This is a player who was acquitted, I should mention, but acquitted during a sexual. Assault case. He’s one of 5 players acquitted earlier this summer, but tonight a lot of the Kanes fans are really happy about this potential move. WREL’s Heidi Kirk is live now at the Lenovo Center after getting some insight on this situation and explaining it to us a bit further, Heidi. Well, Dan, let me tell you what, this has been a big talker since this news broke just this week. In fact, it’s also a big week for the Canes because they started their training camp just days ago and they’re looking ahead to the Stanley Cup, of course, hoping for a big win this season. Now let me break all of this down for you. We’ve been looking into this throughout the day now. Here’s what we know 5 players from Canada. 2018 World Junior Championship team were accused of sexual assault by a woman. The players were acquitted in July. They’ve been ineligible to play in the NHL since February of 2024, but now they’re free to sign with teams as soon as October 15th. Now one of those players, as you mentioned, is Michael McLeod. A report from David Pagnotta. the 4th period, says the Canes are expected to sign McLeod. Now WRAL’s Pat Welter confirmed with sources the team has been discussing this internally, though he found they are not expected to sign McLeod just yet. Now we talked with Hurricanes insider Adam Gold 99.9%, the fan who says the Kes decision could be based on how fans react. Depending on the uproar, Could I see McCloud saying, I don’t want part of that, I don’t wanna be part of that, uh, or the team saying, you know what, maybe it’s not worth all of this. So, if enough people feel strongly about it, if enough people say we don’t want to support the team with our dollars, then maybe a a different decision ultimately is made. And Dan, it’s worth mentioning that the Canes are not the only team who are looking into these players and on the flip side of that, there’s lots of teams that have already spoken out saying that they will not consider any of those five athletes for their teams because of this information. It will be very interesting to see how it all shakes out. Dan, yes, you also mentioned, look, no decision has been made. Nothing is final. You were mentioning that date October 15th as being the soonest these players could be resigned. Could you explain a little bit more why that’s significant? Absolutely. So this all has to do with the NHL’s reinstatement process. Essentially they haven’t been able to be resigned by a team since those charges were brought against them in February of 2024. Now that October 15th deadline is really important because that is the first day that a team can choose to sign one of these players. So of course that’s going to be a date that we’re all going to be looking toward and bringing you updates as soon as we can. Heidi Kirk, Wal News live in Raleigh. Heidi, thank you.