Blues forward Robert Thomas clears himself of any guilt in Hockey Canada investigation

So far, NHL forwards Conor Timmins, Victor Mete, Cale Makar, Dante Fabbro, Carter Hart, Cal Foote, and Jonah Gadjovich have all made statements condemning the allegations from an unnamed woman that she was sexually assaulted by 8 members of the 2018 Team Canada World Juniors team. These players have exonerated themselves from involvement and today, St. Louis Blues forward Robert Thomas joined them.

Read Thomas' statement below:

So, if you're keeping track that's now 8 players who have claimed that they were not involved. And if you're completely out of the loop on this entire scandal, just know that a now 22 year old woman alleges that she was sexually assaulted by 8 members of the team after consenting to have sexual relations with just one of the young men. She alleges that 7 of this young man's teammates joined in and that she was too fearful to leave or say no, despite not consenting to the encounter.

Lawyers  for Hockey Canada released text messages and videos to The Globe and Mail earlier today though which seem to contradict, but nevertheless shed more light onto what exactly happened that evening. First, the Globe acquired videos which showed the alleged victim stating that the acts that evening were consensual.

From the Globe:

The first video clip shown to The Globe is six seconds long and was recorded at 3:25 a.m. on June 19, 2018, the lawyers said. It shows a woman from the neck up. A male voice can be heard saying “You’re ok with this?”

“I’m ok with this,” the woman says.

The second clip is 12 seconds long and taken about an hour later at 4:26 a.m. The same woman appears to be covering herself with a towel in a hotel room, with a closed door to the hallway visible in the background.

“Are you recording me?” she asks. “Ok, good. It was all consensual. You are so paranoid, holy. I enjoyed it, it was fine. It was all consensual. I am so sober, that’s why I can’t do this right now.”

Now, it should be noted that these statements could be made under duress. After all, the young woman was presumably still in the hotel room with 8 young men at the time of the recordings. And I mean... who films acknowledgement of sexual consent? Seems odd to me, but then again I've been off the free agent market for awhile now so what do I know? In any case, the woman's claims in a text message the next day with one of those young men seem to point to the fact that she wasn't in fact "ok with it." After her and her mother filed a report with police, this text interaction happened between herself and an unnamed player.

More from the Globe:

“You said you were having fun,” the player wrote.

“I was really drunk, didn’t feel good about it at all after. But I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble,” she replied.

“I was ok with going home with you, it was everyone else afterwards that I wasn’t expecting. I just felt like I was being made fun of and taken advantage of.”

In her statement to police the woman claims alleges "she felt an imminent fear of physical harm and at times was crying and tried to leave the room" but was “directed, manipulated and intimidated into remaining, after which she was subjected to further sexual assaults.”

Suffice it to say that there's some very conflicting information here and we can only hope that the truth ultimately comes out and plays out in court.