Content advisory: This article includes allegations of sexual assault.

London, Ont. – In the government’s opening statement in the trial of five former members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team, assistant Crown attorney Heather Donkers described an hours-long alleged sexual assault that began early in the morning of June 19, 2018, with a text message sent by Michael McLeod to his Team Canada teammates asking if anyone was interested in participating in a “3 way.”

Donkers told the jury of 11 women and three men in Ontario Superior Court in London, Ont., on Wednesday that the case against McLeod, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube, Cal Foote, and Carter Hart, “is about consent. And equally important, it is about what is not consent.”

“This case is about whether [E.M.] voluntarily agreed to engage in each and every sexual act that took place, at the time that they happened,” Donkers said. “At the end of this trial, we will ask you to find each of the five defendants guilty of sexual assault because they touched [E.M.] without her voluntary agreement to each sexual act when it took place.”

The five players sat in a courtroom that was packed with the players' families and friends, members of the media, and the public, and listened expressionless as Donkers addressed the jury. The defendants have pled not guilty. If they are convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison. The trial is scheduled to last for eight weeks.

The players are charged with sexually assaulting a woman who is identified in court documents as E.M. in June 2018 at a London hotel following a Hockey Canada golf and gala event. McLeod........

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