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Ottawa Senators center Matt Duchene was among the players seen in a ripping video of an assistant coach. The players apologized on Monday.
(Associated Press)
The Canadian newspaper that posted a video of Ottawa Senators hockey players ripping off their assistant coach on an Uber hike last month refused to remove the images from its website.
Michelle Richardson, editor-in-chief of Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Sun, challenged the Senators' claims that the video's release was "of no public interest" and violated the rights of the players.
"The public's interest in the Senators as an organization goes beyond the team's performance on the ice," said Richardson in a statement in the Ottawa Citizen. "The organization is participating in one of the largest development projects in Ottawa's history, a project that assumes the Senators are here to play in a downtown arena.
"The performance on the ice, the ticket sales, the presence, the discord in the locker room and the public support of the organization are all relevant elements to discuss the overall health of the team," he said. she added.
The video shows several Senators players including Chris Wideman, Matt Duchene, Chris Tierney, Thomas Chabot, Dylan DeMelo, Alex Formenton and Colin White, assistant coach Martin Raymond. The conversation was filmed by an Uber driver in Arizona on October 29th. The video was posted on the Ottawa Citizen YouTube page on Monday.
WARNING: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE
At the same time, the driver of Uber who posted the video, a father of six who has been fired since, has called the download "the most stupid decision" of his life, reported the Citizen.
James Sparklin told the newspaper that he only wanted to show his fellow pilots how well-behaved athletes behaved.
"You get a group of guys together and they're usually guys," he told the newspaper.
He also stated that he feared that transporting many well-paid players would pose a financial risk to them should they be involved in an accident.
"I do not think insurance would cover that risk," he said. "The one million dollar policy would go very fast."
Although the video was shot in Arizona, Uber Canada General Manager Rob Khazzam said filming runners in his country without their consent violated their terms of use.
"Filming or recording passengers without their consent is totally unacceptable and if we report / detect we will investigate," he said.
Canadian law restricts disclosure of a person's "personal information", including name, age, income, personal opinions and social status, among other things, according to the Washington Post. The province of Ontario has similar legislation.
The Canadian government may also narrow the discourse on national security concerns, among other reasons, the Post reported, citing information provided by Freedom House. The democracy watchdog says that Canada has a score of 18 out of 100 on press freedom, with 0 being the freest and 100 the least free.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
