MANDEL: Woman begins testimony at sex assault trial of ex-junior hockey champs

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She remembers how she felt that night as she entered the London hotel with the champion Canadian junior hockey player: “Just completely out of it, honestly.”

The complainant, her identity protected by a publication ban, is testifying from a separate room, poised but obviously nervous, as she speaks publicly for the first time about her explosive allegations that she was sexually assaulted in the Delta hotel room by five former members of Canada’s winning junior world hockey team almost seven years ago.

The jury has heard that her initial hook-up with former player Michael McLeod was consensual – but prosecutors allege that he then invited his teammates to room 209 where the ensuing sex was without her consent.

McLeod, 27, Alex Formenton, 25, Cal Foote, 26, Dillon Dube, 26, and Carter Hart, 26, have all pleaded not guilty to sexual assault. McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to a second charge for being a party to the sexual assault.

Now 27, the pretty university graduate sits primly in a beige silk blouse before the camera, her hands in her lap, as assistant Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham begins by asking her how the evening started on June 18, 2018.

She’d completed her second year at university and was working a retail job when her co-workers invited her out to drink and dance at Jack’s, a downtown bar, she explained. She went home to change, drank two Mike’s Hard Lemonades, then took an Uber to pick up a colleague and head to the bar.

The security video footage from Jack’s shows her dressed in a tank top, jeans and heels, her hair pulled up in a ponytail. She and her friend head to the bar where they drink two shots – the first of many. All told, she estimated she had eight shots there as well as a beer and a vodka soda.

For someone who said her usual was four coolers, she recalled that she was eventually feeling very drunk.

“I definitely felt like my inhibitions were lowered the more I drank. Felt like I was becoming just less aware of my surroundings. It felt my vision was a little blurry. Mentally, I felt just all over the place,” she testified.

On the dance floor, she was approached by one young man and then introduced to another as “Mikey.” She and McLeod were soon dancing and drinking and she lost track of her friends.

“I was attracted to him, he seemed interested in me,” she recalled.

Video footage of the dance floor shows a crush of people where she’s often encircled by a group of men who she learned were part of the same hockey team. At other times, she’s squeezed between them as they seem to grind against her or passed her from one to the other.

“I was feeling very sandwiched in,” she recalled. “Just a lot of uncomfortable touching.”

The prosecutor asked what kind of touching?

“They would move my hand to touch the crotch area,” she testified.

Asked how was she feeling at this point, she remembered feeling really drunk and claustrophobic.

“I’m just awkwardly going along with it but definitely feeling like it was a bit much,” the woman recalled. “But again, just trying to dance and have fun and not think too much of it.”

There are more video clips: one guy pulls her ponytail, another hits her on the behind; in another she appears to be held up after almost falling, and later is seen kissing and holding onto McLeod.

By the end of the night, two co-workers tell her they’re leaving and she stays to go back to McLeod’s room.

“He had been making comments about wanting to take me home that night and couldn’t wait to have fun with me, so I just followed him out,” she explained.

She’d thought about sneaking away earlier in the night without having to reject him, but she ultimately decided it would be easier if she just went along.

“I think just in general, I’m just someone who has a bit of a hard time saying ‘No’ and I don’t like upsetting others,” the woman said.

Her first day of testimony, likely the easiest of what lies ahead, ended with video of her following McLeod into the hotel without difficulty at 1:45 a.m.

The jury has heard that 25 minutes later, McLeod sent a group text to his team:  “who wants to be in a threeway, quick. 209 Mikey.“

mmandel@postmedia.com