Hockey Canada's pursuit of bringing back major sponsors unsuccessful; sponsors want the program completely rebuilt
With several major sponsors abandoning partnerships with Hockey Canada amid several sexual assault scandal and cover-up allegations and lawsuits, the program has had a lot to think about in terms of how to best approach the situation and how much change would be needed to bring back their sponsors.
Scandals involving both the 2003 Canadian World Junior team and the 2018 World Junior team has left a black mark on Hockey Canada that even some moderate changes at the executive level won't wash clean.
On Tuesday morning a report surfaced from The Globe and Mail that suggested that Hockey Canada has held discussions with several of their biggest sponsors who have cut ties with the program (some of the sponsors who have walked away this year include Scotiabank, Canadian Tire and Telus) and asked whether parting ways with some of the program's top executives would be enough to repair relationships. The sponsors have indicated that moderate changes wouldn't make a difference.
Sponsors are reportedly looking for "wholesale", sweeping changes to take place before they'll even consider re-establishing business relationships with Hockey Canada and who can blame them? These band-aid on bullet wound patch jobs that Hockey Canada is trying to pull off aren't fooling anyone. Significant culture changes are needed and until those changes are made, it's going to be difficult for the program to secure sponsorship deals, as no huge corporations are going to be comfortable funding programs who fail to adequately respond to and deal with things like sexual assault allegations and relating lawsuits.
