Toronto Cyclones players Katie Armstrong and Sarah Emara said in interviews with TSN that they believe the public should be aware of the March 1 incident at Scotiabank Pond Arena in Toronto and of its aftermath – not to shame the boys or have them removed from hockey, but rather because they believed the response of parents, coaches, and officials on the boys’ team illustrates how hockey allows violations of women’s privacy and boundaries to be dismissed without accountability.

“I think being conditioned as a woman in the culture of sports, you’re taught to say, ‘Oh no, it’s fine, it’s fine,’” Armstrong said. “But it should be taken seriously, even small instances like this. Women are taught to almost feel shame over bringing something like this up. It’s important that you see how things like this start, and that there are different levels.”

A three-person OHF discipline panel wrote in a July 27 decision obtained by TSN that panel members were concerned that there had been no meaningful team-level follow-up or educational response to the incident by the time of the OHF hearing, held virtually on June 30, and that Nationals team officials repeatedly characterizing the matter during an investigation and the hearing as merely an “unfortunate incident” risked minimizing the seriousness of the conduct and the impact on the Cyclones players, who play in the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association.

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Armstrong and Emara said that about a dozen Cyclones players were in various stages of undress following a March 1 game when the door to their locker room opened repeatedly, each time accompanied by laughter.

“After the third time, I made eye contact with the boys who entered and I got dressed and went out to ask where their coach was,” Emara said.

“It was not an accident. They came into the room three or four times. When I was looking for their coaches or parents, a man walked over and told me, ‘It’s OK. They’re 12 years old. They don’t know any better.’ I said that was unacceptable. The kids are standing there just giggling and laughing and by that time, some of their parents were also there saying, ‘This is OK. Boys will be boys.’ That’s what they said, literally word for word: boys will be boys. That just baffled me.”

Emera said she wasn’t upset with the boys as much as with their parents.

“How are they ever going to learn when they see the adults saying, ‘It’s fine for boys to be boys, it’s the girls’ fault the boys went in the change room again and again because the girls didn’t lock the door,’” Emera said. “It just made no sense to me.”