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Canadian amateur hockey has begun to seem like a roach-infested kitchen: the lights have come on, and the insects are scurrying everywhere. After former coach Graham James was sentenced to prison for sexual assault, many similar scandals have been exposed, with the promise of more to come. Canada's cultural elite has taken these sorrows as a cue to condemn the institution of junior hockey itself, comparing it to slavery, and claiming it blights the futures of many thousands of naive Canadian boys. Junior hockey's defenders have not been silent, however, and have come forward to declare that the sport is as fine a preparation for life as any adolescent could have. Graham James, who had coached the Western Hockey League's (WHL) Swift Current Broncos and Edmonton Hitmen, was given a 3- 1\2-year sentence on January 2, after pleading guilty to molesting two former players, including current Boston Bruin Sheldon Kennedy. Since then it has been reported that he may have molested many more. Then rumours about WHL Portland Winter Hawks owner Brian Shaw, who died from AIDS in 1993, were spoken when a number of his old players testified to his predilection for sodomy in the shower room. A week later, Calgary Bantam hockey coach Robert Keith Allaby was charged with molesting a 15-year-old player. A Winnipeg coach was suspended from minor hockey, while police investigated reports that he abused a 13-year-old player four years ago. And Donald Middlebrough, vice- president and general manager of the Junior B Grand Forks Border Bruins, and a former scout for James' Swift Current Broncos, was charged in B.C. with the sexual assault of two males. After these new revelations media commentators argued they were symptomatic of a systemic evil. "Junior hockey is the modern-day equivalent of a medieval apprenticeship, of indentured servitude," wrote Globe and Mail correspondent Jan Wong, a self-professed hockey ignoramus, after a single day visiting the Ottawa 67s. "It takes adolescents as young as 14 and 15, and exploits their passionate love of the game and their dreams of a professional career...junior hockey is child labour...Homesick youths from small towns in rural Canada are employees in a huge and lucrative industry." Deputy prime minister Sheila Copps announced that the James case was "not an isolated incident," since "young people in sports are especially vulnerable." Financial Post editor Diane Francis advised "parents and grandparents should get involved"--apparently unaware that they are very much already. Pedophilia- promoter Gerald Hannon, infamous for comparing man-boy sex to coach-player relationships, argued that the James scandal might have been avoided, had James been able to express his desires openly. Pundit Allan Fotheringham declared, "Sheldon Kennedy has awakened all Canadians, not to sexual abuse, but to our own version of children in the mines." Many found scientific validation in a controversial, six-month-old Sports Canada survey that claimed 21.8% of amateur athletes have had sex with their coaches, and 8.6% have been sexually assaulted. In their haste to blame junior hockey's woes not on predatory homosexuals, but on the game itself, critics have neglected to put the scandals into the context of a sport that is enormously popular and woven into the fabric of Canadian life. Some 530,000 Canadian children play on 28,000 amateur hockey teams, coached by 70,000 volunteers. Considering the numbers involved, there is no evidence that sexual abuse is more prevalent in junior hockey than in any other Canadian activity. The 49 teams of the "major-junior" Canadian Hockey League (CHL) --which comprises the Western Hockey League, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, and the Ontario Hockey League--employ 1,300 16- to 20-year-olds in any given year. Although players may be drafted at 14, they may not play until 16, and most come into the league at 17 or 18. And while pundits claim that "95% of junior hockey players will never fulfil their dream," 136 CHL players (over 10% of the league) made the NHL draft last year--58% of the 234 drafted. Still, it remains true that the majority of major-junior players see their hopes of a professional career--if, indeed, they ever entertained any--evaporate at 20. Yet it is precisely among junior hockey "has-beens" that one finds the sport's most ardent defenders--those who took what the sport had to offer and went on to become successful adults. "The only regret I have about my junior hockey career is that I didn't start sooner," says Edmonton Police Service officer John Lamb, 34. "I went to the [WHL's] Prince Albert Raiders at 17, and now I wish I'd started at 16. I'll always thank the Raiders for the people I got to know. You learn a lot--enduring adversity, discipline, getting along, managing your time. Canadian police departments are filled with old junior hockey players." University of Alberta business student Mark Hurley agrees. "I was offered an American hockey scholarship, but I got to play more hockey in the juniors," he says. "The three years I spent at Tri-City [Washington] were the best years of my life so far. We put together an education package, so I earned a year-and-a-half of university credits in the three years I played. It was hard, but I grew up a lot. And I'll be visiting my billet to the day I die. They became my second mom and dad--in fact, they're coming up next month to visit my real mom and dad." Duane Blume, 34, general manager of the Kimberley (B.C.) Ski and Summer Resort, says that junior hockey taught him the virtues of "teamwork, discipline, endurance, toleration. Athletes always want to go on to the next level, but you learn to face reality. You have to decide what sort of person you want to be. If my sons want to go the hockey route, I'll sure encourage them." Castlegar (B.C.) Rebels coach Pat Price, 42, a forestry tugboat operator by day, began his career with the WHL's Saskatoon Blades and later played 14 seasons in the NHL and the World Hockey Association. "I'm sick and tired of the bleeding-heart liberals trying to take over our national game and wreck our national character," he says. "I know dozens of accountants and lawyers in Vancouver who still play hockey at all hours of the night, because they know competition teaches perseverance, and winning gives confidence." University of Alberta commerce student Scott Adair has only praise for the coaches he had with three WHL teams. "I've seen coaches turn a lot of kids around--you know, 'problem players'--and not just on the ice," he says. "They don't just take responsibility for a kid's education. They try to develop his character." Musing on the James case, Mr. Adair wonders whether a gay male coach has any place in the boys' showers, any more than a straight, male coach belongs in the girls' showers. Political correctness, however, may prevent junior hockey with dealing honestly with the problem of homosexuality. After Saskatoon Blades governor Jack Brodsky reportedly said he would not hire a homosexual coach, WHL commissioner Dev Dley replied that sexual prejudice is unacceptable in hockey. Toronto lawyer Gordon Kirke has been appointed by the CHL to develop a "Players First" report--a blueprint explaining how the league can screen out molesters and teach its players how to avoid abuse. "I'd like to think that my report won't be restricted by political correctness, but in some jurisdictions, there are limits in what we can legally do," says Mr. Kirke. "It may be legally possible to bar a man from a girls' team on the basis of his sex, but legally impossible to bar him from a boys' team on the basis of his sexual orientation." --Joe Woodard