Province urged to direct sports organizations to stop secrecy over misconduct sanctions

A Toronto family is calling on the Ontario government to improve its oversight of publicly-funded provincial sport organizations after a local ringette association did not inform parents or the public after it sanctioned a male coach twice for walking with no notice into a girls’ dressing room while they were changing.

Brynna King, who is now 18 and a student at the University of Ottawa, said she and her teammates on the Richmond Hill Ringette Association’s U-19 AA team were getting ready one evening in September 2022 when head coach Ian Harling walked into the dressing room. A number of the teenaged girls were still wearing their bras and underwear when Harling appeared without any notice, King said.

“Ian said he wanted to go over our practice plan, but it was extremely uncomfortable,” King said in a recent interview with TSN. “Him being there with girls who were not dressed did not feel right… I remember looking at my friends in the change room and we were confused and shocked.”

King said she told her parents that evening about what had happened, and they agreed to notify the Richmond Hill Ringette Association (RHRA).

Following King’s complaint to RHRA president Adam Natsheh, Harling was suspended for two games from his duties with his U-19 AA team, which played in the Great Lakes Ringette League. Harling was still allowed by the organization to run team practices during his suspension.

“He stood up in the locker room during one practice and said it was weird, and he didn’t know why he had been suspended,” King said. “He just laughed it off.”

Harling declined repeated requests for an interview and did not respond to a list of emailed questions.

After a second complaint was made in January of 2023 alleging Harling again walked into the U-19 AA team dressing room while players were changing, he was suspended for another five games and had his locker room privileges revoked for the remainder of the season, Natsheh wrote in a Nov. 1 email to TSN. Natsheh wrote that the 2023 complainant was anonymous.

The RHRA did not make Harling’s suspensions public and did not inform either Ringette Ontario or Ringette Canada about what had happened. Natsheh wrote that it wasn’t the association’s policy to do so.

Ringette Ontario only learned of the issue after Brynna’s father, Neil King, notified the provincial association in April 2024 after Brynna finished playing.

“We wanted Ian and the association to be held accountable,” Neil King said in an interview. “Brynna was treated unfairly after making a complaint. She was courageous to come forward and it blew back in her face. She was targeted by the coach for the rest of the season and that was our starting point.

“We wanted the club to acknowledge that and the fact there was no record keeping on the suspensions was scary. Parents were not told about this. If I was a parent on one of Ian’s future teams and he walked into a locker room and saw my 12-year-old daughter undressed and I found out the organization knew about his previous behaviour but didn’t tell me, I’d be pissed.”

Ringette Ontario refused to investigate King’s complaint because the organization’s policy is to only accept complaints that are filed within 14 days of an alleged incident. Ringette Ontario executive director Karla Xavier wrote in an email to TSN that the organization can make an exception to that deadline.

“The concept of a deadline for submitting a complaint is designed to ensure that complaints are addressed promptly, thereby protecting the rights of both the complainant, the subject of the complaint, and providing certainty,” Xavier wrote. “This deadline may be waived under extenuating circumstances.”

Brynna’s parents argue that the deadline was inappropriate because it may take some complainants much longer than two weeks to decide whether to file a report.

“I wonder how many girls don’t come forward because they think they’ll get benched or kicked off a team, so they just leave their sport,” Carolyn Frail, Brynna’s mother, said in an interview. “A two-week deadline is ridiculous, and in our case, Ringette Ontario wouldn’t even have a conversation with us. I felt insulted. They talk about words like safety and inclusion, but those are just words. The more they ran away the more we realized what a big problem this was.”

The issue of maltreatment in sports has received significant attention in recent years from the public, the media, and the federal government. Much of the scrutiny has been focused on incidents involving national-team level coaches, athletes, and officials.

In 2023, the government financed the opening of the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC), which receives and investigates complaints of misconduct. (The federal government said earlier this year that as of April 2025, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) will take over the OSIC’s role.) One issue is, the OSIC ‘s mandate is to focus almost exclusively on alleged misconduct involving national-team level athletes, coaches, and officials and the CCES is expected to do the same when it takes over.

The Richmond Hill ringette case offers a glimpse at how many local associations and provincial and territorial sport organizations (PTSOs) – which have oversight over the vast majority of amateur Canadian athletes – lag behind many of their federal counterparts when it comes to confronting maltreatment and being transparent about cases where allegations are corroborated.

Hilary Findlay, a retired sport management professor at Brock University who still publishes research on safe sport issues, was briefed by TSN on Brynna King’s complaint and said Ringette Ontario and the RHRA fell short on several fronts.

After Harling’s second suspension, he should have been suspended for a full season or even fired outright by the association, Findlay said in an interview with TSN.

“Doing this multiple times establishes a pattern,” she said.

Findlay said the ringette case highlights how many of the 500-plus PTSOs across Canada are underfunded, are run by poorly trained and overworked volunteers, and lack effective governance that would ensure the organizations are transparent with its members and the public.

“Many of the people running associations and provincial sport organizations have no knowledge or training about how to deal with maltreatment allegations and really don’t want to bring attention to themselves,” Findlay said. “It’s up to the provincial governments to hold organizations accountable but to this point, most provinces and territories haven’t felt the need.”

While officials with national sport organizations have been summoned to testify before the federal Heritage Committee over the past few years about how they have responded to allegations of maltreatment in sport, provincial governments have not been held accountable, Findlay said.

“There has been no repercussions or backlash on provincial governments for doing nothing,” she said. “The attention in sports has all been at the federal level and that’s concerning because research shows 80 per cent of maltreatment in sports is happening at the local level. There’s everything from sexual assaults to minor harassment and parents should push the government to be more involved.”

Findlay said even national sport organizations have resisted demanding change from their provincial associations.

“Money is always an issue and many of the NSOs want to have good relationships with the PTSOs and don’t want to disturb,” she said.

Denelle Balfour, a spokeswoman for Ontario sport minister Neil Lumsden, wrote in an email to TSN that the provincial government requires PTSOs to have policies that support safe and inclusive sport environments, including codes of conduct and discipline, dispute resolution, harassment, and inclusion policies.

“We are deeply concerned to hear about the issues raised regarding the safety and well-being of young female athletes within Ringette Canada and Ringette Ontario,” Balfour wrote. “Ensuring a safe environment for all athletes across the province is a priority.”

Frail said the Ontario government’s approach of demanding provincial sport organizations have policies is not enough because there’s no requirement that the policies have any teeth.

Publicly funded sports organizations in Ontario are not required to use independent third parties to accept and investigate claims, are not required to maintain public sanctions registries, and are not required to implement other transparency policies, such as publishing board meeting minutes.

“Ringette Ontario answers to no one,” Frail said. “They don’t answer to Sport Ontario, or the OSIC, or Sport Canada. The provincial government is handing out millions of taxpayer dollars and letting organizations run with it without any audits, without any oversight.”

Natsheh confirmed to TSN that Harling is now coaching one of the RHRA’s 18+A teams, which is comprised of players who are at least 18 years old.

“The adult players specifically requested that Harling be the head coach,” Natsheh wrote. “While this is an adult only team, RHRA has provided specific dressing room protocol for Harling to comply with for the entirety of the season.”

Natsheh wrote the RHRA does not publicly publish disciplinary-related sanctions and wrote the organization has not advised members of Harling’s current team or their parents about his past suspensions.

“It is common not to communicate with parents of an 18+A team as the players are adults,” Natsheh wrote. “Several players on the team were on the 2022/2023 U19AA team with Mr. Harling and are therefore aware of his previous suspensions… RHRA is currently reviewing its policies relating to maltreatment in sport to ensure adherence to current safe sport practices.”

Natsheh wrote that since the King’s complaint, the association has adopted a new complaint management process that is managed by an independent third party, Quebec City-based Alias Solutions.

The RHRA has also hired independent review panel members to ensure unbiased decision making about cases and has updated its dressing room protocol and communicated to all team staff, Natsheh wrote.

Brynna King said she has no plans to try out for her university's ringette team.

“I used to be so excited to go to my practices and games," she said. “But the [RHRA] put this coach before athletes, and I just don’t feel the same way about ringette any more. It's just weird to me that organizations would justify keeping secrets like this. People should be told about this."