Graham James (ice hockey)

Graham Michael James (born February 7, 1952), is a former Canadian ice hockey coach for the Western Hockey League and convicted sex offender, named Man of the Year by The Hockey News in 1989 after coaching the Swift Current Broncos league championship win.

This honour was later revoked by The Hockey News^[1] and James, through an intermediary, returned the plaque to the offices of The Hockey News where it was destroyed.^[2]

In 1994, James became the General Manager and coach of the Calgary Hitmen.

James attracted national attention two years later when NHL player Sheldon Kennedy came forward to accuse him of sexually abusing him over a period of years as his junior league coach. Kennedy also mentioned that another NHL player had endured the same abuse, but refused to name him. James pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

After completing his sentence, James obtained a federal pardon and left the country, settling in Spain and Mexico. However in 2009, Theoren Fleury published a book alleging he too had been abused by James in the 1980s, which James again acknowledged as true. In March of 2012, he was sentenced to another two years in prison.

Biography

Early life

Born in Summerside, Prince Edward Island on February 7, 1952,^[3] he played hockey until about the age of 18, when he stopped due to asthma attacks. He graduated from university, and worked as a substitute teacher in St. James-Assiniboia School Division 2, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and began his hockey coaching career.^[3] It later became evident that he in fact never graduated from university at all, until after he completed courses for his B.A. while serving a prison sentence. ^[4]

Between 1979 and 1983 he coached Junior A Hockey, including the Fort Garry Blues with whom he won the Manitoba provincial title. In 1984, he was head scout for the Winnipeg Warriors of the Western Hockey League, and recruited two future National Hockey League players to the team, Theoren Fleury and Sheldon Kennedy. The team later relocated to Moose Jaw as the Moose Jaw Warriors,^[5] and in 1985 James was hired as head coach for the team.^[3]

He was the coach and general manager of the Swift Current Broncos from 1986–1994, leading them to two WHL titles in 1989 and 1993.^[3] The team also won the Memorial Cup in 1989, and in the same year James was named Man of the Year by The Hockey News, which has since been revoked by the magazine.^[6] He was also coach of the Broncos when four of its players were killed when the team bus overturned on December 30, 1986. In 1994, James became the part owner, head coach and general manager of the expansion Calgary Hitmen, a new WHL franchise.^[3] He resigned during the 1996-97 season and was replaced by Dean Clark.

Sexual abuse

In 1996, Sheldon Kennedy and another unnamed player came forward with complaints about sexual abuse they had suffered between 1984 and 1995,^[6] and in November 1996, James was charged with sexual assault.^[3] On January 2, 1997, James pleaded guilty to 350 sexual assaults against the two players, and was sentenced to three and a half years in jail. He was paroled in 2001.^[3][6] The players referred to whomever James targeted as "Graham's new favourite." James was charismatic and consistently successful as a coach. Even during his investigation, he was able to secure character references from respected hockey people and former players. He claimed that his relationship with Sheldon Kennedy was consensual and it was not illegal or immoral.^[7] James noted that he was attracted to males, primarily between the ages of 15 and 25, but kept these feelings closeted.^[8]

In 1999, a civil lawsuit against James, the Canadian Hockey Association, the Western Hockey League and other hockey organizations was filed by an unnamed victim of James and his parents. It was settled out of court in 2003.^[3]

James was given a lifetime ban from coaching by the Canadian Hockey Association.^[6] When the CHA learned that James was coaching in Spain, it complained to European ice hockey officials, and he was fired.^[6][9] His subsequent whereabouts were unclear, though there were some rumours that he was living in Montreal.^[6] In May 2010, he was located by a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation investigative reporter, living in Guadalajara, Mexico.^[6]

In a memoir entitled Playing with Fire: The Theo Fleury Story, retired NHL player Theo Fleury alleged that from the age of 14 James had molested him for years during his time on the Moose Jaw Warrior team.^[6][10] On January 6, 2010, Fleury filed a criminal complaint with the City of Winnipeg police.^[6][5] "I have been reflecting on this a long time," said Fleury. "I wanted to make the biggest impact on preventing this kind of thing from happening in the future."^[5] James pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting Todd Holt and his cousin Theo Fleury, who played in the NHL. He claimed to have assaulted both of his former players hundreds of times over the course of many years while they were teenagers. A third victim, Greg Gilhooly also filed a complaint with the police. James refused to plead guilty to the charges relating to Gilhooley's assault and, consequently, the Gilhooly charges were stayed.^[11] James has been sentenced to two years imprisonment for these crimes.^[12]

Pardon

On April 4, 2010, it was revealed in the media that James had been issued a pardon by the Canadian National Parole Board in 2007. News of the pardon only came to light when an unidentified Winnipeg man brought an allegation of abuse against him. ^[13] The situation surrounding the pardon provoked outrage, and has led to proposed changes to the Canadian pardon system.^[6]

On October 25, 2010, James was taken into custody at Pearson International Airport in Toronto. He was wanted in Winnipeg on nine counts of sexual assault,^[14] and was released on bail in December of that same year.^[15]

New charges

On December 7, 2011, James pleaded guilty to sexual assaults involving two of his former players, former NHL star Theoren Fleury and Todd Holt, a cousin of Fleury's.

On March 20, 2012 he was sentenced to 2 years in prison,^[16] submitting DNA sample to national sex offender registry, and lifetime ban on "volunteering in a position of trust to children".^[17] The new charges arose from Theoren Fleury's autobiography in which he describes the abuse. ^[18]

Crown Appeal

On February 15, 2013; the Manitoba Court of Appeal revised James' sentence from two years to five years, after the Crown successfully argued Judge Catherine Carlson erred in sentencing principals on March 20, 2012, by putting too much weight into James' previous sentence of 3 1/2 years served in 1997.^[19]

References