Oily

     

    Well, it appears another mutt from the London Five kennel has found his forever home. To the surprise of few, it's in Edmonton. The Oilers have decided to sign Alex Formenton and add the controversial player to an already-controversial organization. 

    Formenton is one of five former Team Canada junior players accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a London hotel in 2018. Local police opened and then quickly closed an investigation at the time, but it was only when the woman filed a civil suit in 2022 that anyone really listened to her. Money talks. It's the loudest voice on the planet.

    Hockey Canada wasted no time drawing from its special compensation-to-victims slush fund to settle the case out of court. That fund paid out nearly $8-million in 21 cases since 1989, covering up for the perpetrators and allowing toxic, abusive hockey culture to rot the game from the inside out. 

    Public outrage over the case spawned a Parliamentary investigation and eventual criminal charges. In 2025, the five players were acquitted by a London judge who found "inconsistencies" in the woman's testimony based on the original local police investigative errors, even though Hockey Canada believed her story enough to pay her to go away.

    Formenton is the third of the London Five to land himself a nice payday in the NHL. Carter Hart, notoriously, signed in Vegas last year and this summer the Blues' management decided their image was too clean so they hired Dillon Dube. Of the three...even including Vegas...the only one of those contracts that shocked nobody was Formenton's.

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    The Oilers have been an embarrassment for a long time. Since their last Cup win in 1990, they've produced rosters ranging from mediocre to disappointing to gruesome. Promoting completely unqualified former players to management positions in a futile attempt to build a franchise legacy ensured they'd never create a true contender. At one point, the team was commonly known as Club Med North. 

    Then came the lottery picks. Edmonton had the first-overall selections in the 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2015 drafts. They had five other picks in the top ten since 2010 as well, including Leon Draisaitl at third in 2014. What legitimate NHL team gets to draft first-overall four times in six years and produce nothing...not even a playoff appearance in nine of ten years while it's winning lottery after lottery? If there were relegation in the NHL as there is in Premier League football, the Oilers would have been in the ECHL for a decade.

    Now, however, they're becoming the most cynical version of the franchise yet and a blatant example of what the NHL itself is becoming. It started with the hiring of nepo-baby Stan Bowman as GM in 2024. When Bowman was GM in Chicago in 2010, he knew player Kyle Beach had accused video coach Brad Aldrich of sexual assault. He and other executives agreed to keep it quiet because the team was in the middle of a playoff run. When it all came to light in 2021, Bowman resigned and the Blackhawks paid a $2-million fine. Within a month of Bowman's return to good standing in the NHL, the Oilers snapped him up, regardless of the sordid Chicago situation.

    Ditto Mike Babcock. Accused of verbal abuse by players in Detroit, he was then fired in Toronto for humiliating players. Then he quit in Columbus after only two months...after demanding players show him personal photos so he could "get a sense of their character." That one finally got the NHL to investigate. Naturally, Babcock was cleared and the Oilers, once again, jumped at the chance to hire a shameful executive.

    Now, with the hiring of Formenton, Edmonton has achieved the trifecta of disgrace; sexual assault enabler GM, abusive coach and former sexual assault defendant player.

    

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    The Oilers' elevation of controversial people is, sadly, reflective of the decline in class in the NHL generally. From the Panthers bringing the Stanley Cup to the White House during a fascist regime to the narcissistic Tom Dundon in Carolina inscribing his kids' names on it (to the exclusion of long-time team staff), the league's silver has been tarnished.

    NHL officiating seems to be getting more inconsistent every year and the department of player safety routinely allows dangerous hits to go unpunished. Television coverage of games is getting harder for fans to access and ticket prices are so high most families can't afford them. Corporate sponsors and gambling ads cover the ice, the boards and now, the players' uniforms. Gary Bettman's rules have made a circus of games with the shootout, the weird playoff format and the endless offside reviews. His decision to reinstate people like Bowman and the London Five alienated female fans and assault survivors and his ban on Pride sweaters alienated everyone who believes the game belongs to all people.

    So, in some ways, the Oilers becoming the league dogcatchers is just the next step in the NHL's devolution.

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    All of this is to underline why the Canadiens are a source of hope for fans and for the league. Perhaps the most telling piece of video published by the team in the last year is a clip of Kent Hughes on the phone with Ivan Demidov.

    It was early morning on Saturday, June 28, 2025. Hughes and his staff were set up in the Canadiens dressing room at the Bell Centre in Montreal, closely monitoring the draft happening at the Peacock Arena in Los Angeles. At one point, Hughes stepped out of the room and softly told his phone to "text Ivan Demidov."

    Hughes was about to draft Alexander Zharovsky in the second round, based on the recommendations of his scouting team. Before he made that call, however, he made the one to Demidov. He wanted more than just the scouts' impressions or the numbers and videos. He needed to know what kind of person Zharovsky was in his peers' opinions. That's why, when Demidov began to rave about Zharovsky's skill, Hughes asked "Good guy? Any trouble?" 

    To Habs' management, it's as important to ask those questions as it is to ask how many goals the guy scored last year or what he weighs. It's no surprise Hughes made the Zach Bolduc/Logan Mailloux trade. Even though Mailloux had paid his dues with an apology to the woman whose intimate photo he shared with teammates, sensitivity classes and community service (unlike any of the London Five), the fact that his name will forever be tied to his past was a no-go for the Canadiens.

    There may come a day when a Canadiens player of this generation ends up involved in a scandal of some sort, but it won't be for lack of diligence on the part of management. And there's no way Geoff Molson would inscribe his kids' names on the Cup. 

    The Habs have a reputation for classiness to uphold, which isn't easy in a time when some teams have no problem hiring people accused of abuse.  If any team in the league right now can claim to run a clean operation it's the Canadiens. Let's hope it stays that way and the London Five and whatever teams hire them never win again.