Breaking: Serious accusations of fraud against one of the biggest names in hockey.

One of the biggest names in all of hockey is facing serious accusations of fraud stemming from a lawsuit filed in New York district court.

While the name of the company being sued, Performance Sports Group(PSG), may not be a household name in the game of hockey, it's two subsidiaries Bauer and Easton are exactly that. According to a report from TSN's Rick Westhead, PSG is being accused of using a practice called "channel stuffing" to falsify revenue and net income, effectively lying about the current state of their business to the outside world.

This amounts to both fraud as well as stock market manipulation and it doesn't end there. According to Westhead's report PSG revealed on Wednesday that it is also being investigated by securities regulators in both the United States and Canada. It's not just the parent company either, Bauer executives allegedly played a direct role in perpetrating the fraud.

One of the witnesses' in the lawsuit identified only as CW3 stated the following:

“As CW3 recounted, [Bauer vice president of sales Paul] Healey and PSG chief executive Kevin Davis “both knew that the hockey equipment market was saturated, yet they insisted that their retailers increase orders every year,” the lawsuit says. “Even though the number of amateur hockey players in the U.S. remained flat or decreased, PSG put more [product] into the market than the market could handle."

“PSG threatened customers with the loss of their discounts if they did not increase the size of their orders each year or if they did not agree to accept merchandise shipment early."

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Needless to say this could have massive ramifications for Bauer, and by extension the players they currently sponsor in the NHL, a list that includes Alex Ovechkin, Patrick Kane, Steven Stamkos and even this year's first overall pick Auston Matthews.