A Winnipeg minor hockey player was benched for his team’s season finale Saturday after his parents filed a defamation lawsuit naming a South Winnipeg Hockey Association (SWHA) board member as a defendant.

The association made the decision to indefinitely suspend the boy and his parents, Elena Russo Rusak and Corey Rusak, from all league-related activities on Thursday, after they submitted a statement of claim at Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Tuesday against Hiten Shah, vice-president with the hockey association.

“It’s heartbreaking on so many levels,” Russo Rusak said.

  • HellsBelleOPEnglish
    9·
    3 days ago

    I’m not choosing sides here because I don’t have the particulars of the incident … but I am taking issue with the following:

    By filing a statement of claim, the couple violated a Hockey Manitoba by-law, (Steve Mason, president of the South Winnipeg Hockey Association) said in his emailed letter, obtained by CBC. Under section 306(A), the association can indefinitely suspend one of its members from participating in any hockey activities and games, if they choose to take legal action before pursuing and exhausting an internal appeal process.

    More times than not so-called ‘internal processes’ are unfair, restrictive and do not promote the finding of truth … especially when it involves the power of leadership/management vs participants.

    We’ll see where this goes I guess.

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
      1·
      3 days ago

      Yes but I don’t have an issue with the rest of it

      If it’s one of “those” parents then you definitely don’t want the kid playing during a lawsuit