Sexual Assault In The Ice Skating Community

In the past year, the media has seen a rise in TV shows and movies featuring the ice skating community, especially hockey. These include shows such as Heated Rivalry and Off Campus, both of which focus on characters who are hockey players or associated with them.

An important part of Off Campus is its inclusion of a main character who experienced sexual assault in her past, perpetrated by a male hockey player. While the main focus of these two shows centers around romance and drama, their popularity brought attention to the ice skating community overall, shining a light on the large issues within it. One of which is the prevalence of sexual assault and other forms of sexual harm. 

Survivors of these harmful behaviors do not always recognize the sexual abuse for what it is. This can be due to various reasons, but especially because the behaviors are often disguised as a normal or necessary part of their training.

Actions and behaviors that are considered sexual abuse include: 

• Any inappropriate touching 

• Any type of sexual contact with a minor 

• The touching of private parts, including a female’s breasts 

• Groping or fondling of an athlete 

• Hugging or kissing between a coach and figure skaters 

• Inappropriate massages 

• Explicit text messages or photographs 

• Requests for sexual favors by a coach

In both figure skating and hockey, sexual abuse does not stop at individual perpetrators displaying inappropriate or abusive behaviors “sometimes.” Instead, the issue lies in the institutions that allow sexual abuse to continue without interjection. 

As one Canadian government official told the Guardian, abuse remains a “dirty hidden secret in sports and what people are seeing is the tip of the iceberg.”

Existing Cases of Sexual Assault In The Ice Skating Community

In both the figure skating and hockey world there are an unfortunate number of cases involving coaches, staff members, and players who abuse their power over athletes or those in their personal lives. 

In figure skating, a prominent case of sexual assault that occurred involved Richard Callaghan, a prominent U.S. Olympic figure skating coach who was accused of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse by multiple former students spanning decades. He faced multiple civil lawsuits and disciplinary actions over allegations of the sexual abuse involving minors that he coached. Callaghan denied the allegations but rulings from the U.S. Center for SafeSport declared him permanently ineligible from the sport in August 2019 after the investigation concluded that the coach had engaged in grooming, sexual contact, and physical abuse over the span of two decades. 

Unfortunately, Callaghan appealed the lifetime ban to an independent arbitrator, which allowed his lifetime ban to be reduced to a three-year suspension and 15 years of probation. On a brighter side of the case, Callaghan signed a legally binding settlement agreement that ensured he would never coach minors or anyone under the age of 18 again. 

In hockey, a more recent and well-known case occurred with a now Vegas Golden Knights player who was seen playing in the 2026 Stanley Cup Finals. In June 2018, Carter Hart and four other former Canadian junior hockey players were accused of sexually assaulting a woman. This took place in a London, Ontario hotel room following a Hockey Canada gala celebrating the team’s gold medal win. 

The players were formally charged in early 2024 and underwent an eight-week trial in the spring of 2025 that ended with all five players being acquitted of sexual assault charges in July 2025. However, four of the hockey players, including Hart, were suspended from Hockey Canada programs through November 2027 following a subsequent code of conduct ruling.

According to BBC News, the three-judge independent appeal board concluded the players had violated Hockey Canada’s code of conduct, recommending that four of the five acquitted players remain suspended from all Hockey Canada-sanctioned programs.

Why Is Sexual Assault Prevalent In The Ice Skating Community? 

Sexual assault is a painful experience that can occur in any social context, but sometimes its prevalance is affected by specific factors. Within the ice skating community, these factors exist in the form of imbalances in power, grooming behaviors, and specific contract structures that allow harmful behaviors to go unnoticed and unchecked. 

Power Imbalances

Power imbalance exists as coaches hold a high level of authority over the actions, habits, and development of athletes. This can be especially prevalent in minors, who are even more vulnerable to authority figures taking advantage of them. 

The coaches choose training regimes, influence dietary restrictions and eating habits, impact or encourage career paths, and greatly affect the personal and emotional lives of the athletes. This gives coaches significant control over an athlete’s physical and professional development. 

The U.S. Center for SafeSport recognizes that coach-athlete relationships inherently contain differences in power, especially with an adult coach working with a young athlete. While this power can be used in a positive way to help athletes develop their skills and to reach their goals, it can also be exploited when a coach uses their authority to manipulate, intimidate, or harm an athlete. 

The restrictions or recommendations given by coaches can impact how the athletes view themselves, both physically and mentally. Enforcing specific eating habits can sometimes cause eating disorders or body dysmorphia within young athletes as they are required to pay strict attention to what they consume and when they do it. 

Coaches may also influence an athlete's perception of their body and physical appearance. Recommendations about weight, diet, or body composition can have lasting effects on how young athletes view themselves. Because athletes often depend on their coaches to improve and advance, they may feel that disagreeing with a coach could negatively affect their performance or future in the sport. 

Overall, a young skater may be taught that coaches are authority figures whose instructions should be followed without question.

Athlete Status and Institutional Protection

Sexual assault within the ice skating community does not always occur between a coach and an athlete. Athletes can also sexually harm other athletes or those who are not within the sport community at all. This abuse can occur due to the power imbalance of differing team status or player position (such as a caption), popularity, physical dominance, seniority, or the influence an athlete has over their teammates. 

This is especially prevalent in sports such as hockey, where athletes spend a large amount of time together through practices, travel, competitions, parties, and team events. A perpetrator does not necessarily need to hold an official position of authority to have significant power over another person. 

Athletes themselves can hold significant social and institutional power, especially when they are successful, well-known, or considered valuable to their teams. This influence can impact relationships beyond the ice rink, where a successful athlete may have a strong public reputation, financial resources, teammates, fans, and organizational support that an ordinary member of the public does not have. This means that citizens targeted by athletes can be more vulnerable as they lack the power, resources, and support to push back against an abuser. 

Teams and organizations often depend on their athletes for competitive success, publicity, sponsorships, and revenue. This means that there is a lot of pressure surrounding the protection of an athlete’s reputation, rather than protecting and offering aid to the person who makes an allegation against an athlete. 

This culture created by the institutions can cause serious behavior to be minimized, ignored, or kept out of the public attention. Institutional protection does not always mean actually covering up an assault, but can instead involve delayed investigations, inadequate responses, or treating an athlete’s behavior as an isolated personal issue rather than the serious and dangerous problem that it is. 

The Hockey Canada case illustrates this pattern. In 2025, all five players named in the case were acquitted of criminal charges, yet Hockey Canada's separate disciplinary process later found four of them had violated the organization’s code of conduct. It shows why athletic success and institutional reputation should not determine how seriously allegations of sexual assault are treated. 

When athletes believe their status can protect them from consequences, and survivors believe institutions will prioritize the athlete’s career over their safety, reporting sexual misconduct becomes extremely difficult. 

Hidden Grooming Behaviors

Grooming behaviors can unfortunately pass unnoticed as abusive tendencies can be disguised as standard training, intense mentorship, or physical adjustments needed for the sport. Figure skating requires precise body positioning, core alignment, and physical spotting for jumps. Coaches or other staff members can take advantage of these moments to normalize inappropriate touch during private lessons. These are not normally singular, sudden events. 

Instead, grooming starts off as gradual boundary erosion where there are small, seemingly innocent actions. This can include offering special privileges, driving the athlete home or becoming a part of other personal moments or routines, and giving expensive gifts. Over time, these actions affect the athlete’s perception of what is normal. Many young athletes may even feel indebted to their coach, enabling the abuse to escalate further without the athlete reporting it.

The coaches and staff claim that it’s meant for practice and perfecting form, that it helps the students to perform better, that it’s “required.” This allows abusers to pass their actions off as necessary methods for success rather than the harmful behaviors that they truly are. 

Private Contracts & Other Pressures 

Skaters can spend dozens of hours a week alone training with coaches, often through private lessons or individual training sessions. Because individual coaching is an important part of ice skating, athletes can develop relationships with coaches that extend beyond a normal instructor-student relationship. 

Coaches can become responsible for an athlete’s technique, competition preparation, career development, and sometimes even transportation and travel. This creates an environment where a young athlete may become heavily dependent on one person for their success. This can also cause unhealthy dependency, blurred boundaries, and abuse when the relationship escalates or is misused. 

These private sessions, training, and moments in-between can allow abusive behaviors to easily go unnoticed and without interference. This is only worsened by the overall culture surrounding these intense sports, where there is a tremendous amount of financial investment involved in competitive skating. 

Families or individuals may invest thousands of dollars on private lessons, ice time, equipment, travel, competitions, and other training expenses. Because of this, both parents or individual athletes paying for themselves may feel pressure to maintain a relationship with a singular coach rather than changing coaches or leaving a training program, when this could mean losing money, disrupting development, and risking the chances of success later (whether this is true or not). 

This pressure further reduces the chances of an athlete coming forward and reporting their abuser. This can come from feelings or thoughts that they would be failing their family or themselves, or that too much has been invested for them to “mess up the opportunity.” Many young athletes may brush their experiences off as a necessary part of their training or overall experience when pursuing success. 

What Can Be Done and Where to Find Help

Although sexual assault and other harm remains a serious issue within sports, change is possible! 

Sports organizations can help prevent abuse by establishing clear boundaries between athletes, coaches, and staff, requiring safe and observable training environments, providing independent reporting systems, and ensuring that allegations of assault are taken seriously, regardless of an individual’s status or reputation. Organizations like the International Olympic Committee are already modeling this shift, with dedicated Safe Sport initiatives addressing sexual harassment and abuse across Olympic and Paralympic sports.

Athletes, parents, coaches, and teammates can also help by recognizing inappropriate behavior, supporting survivors, and speaking up when something does not feel right. This will help create a culture where safety is valued over winning and can make it easier for people to report abuse before it continues or escalates. 

For anyone experiencing sexual assault or abuse, you are not alone! What happened to you is not your fault. Survivors can seek support through services like RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline, which provides support and information by phone and online. Athletes involved in U.S. Olympic or Paralympic sports can also report abuse or misconduct to the U.S. Center for Safesport. 

Reaching out for help does not mean you have to immediately make a formal report. Survivors can first speak with someone they trust and get emotional support before deciding what they want the next step to be, no matter what that looks like. 

Sexual abuse can have many lasting effects, but it absolutely does not define your future! There is a path of healing and there is a whole community out there wanting to support you. 

If you’re ready to share your own experience, or just want to see how other survivors have found their way through their healing journey, Our Wave’s community platform is built for exactly that. Connect with others who understand and take the next step in your healing on our own terms.