Carter Hart, Cal Foote, Michael McLeod, and Dillon Dube are now confronting sexual assault charges in London, Ontario. The incident took place in June of 2018 after an event honoring the 2018 Canadian World Juniors team. Alex Formenton, who plays in Europe, was also charged. All five have denied the charges and plan to plead innocent. The London police will hold a news conference on Monday to address the case.

If one were in a conspiracy kind of mood, and didn’t trust Hockey Canada, the NHL, or the London Police, fully, there is one aspect of these charges to the four NHLers that is just a little curious. All four of McLeod, Dube, Foote, and Hart are in the last year of their contracts.

The original lawsuit was filed against eight unnamed players, not five. The evidence the police have can only convincingly charge five players. If you were the mischievous sort, you might think the other three were on long-term contracts.

There is nothing concrete or even close to it to suggest that the police, Hockey Canada and the NHL got together to put these five up. News broke that the Orioles will escape the clutches of the Angelos family for the low low price of $1.72 billion.

Baltimore product David Rubenstein will be the one getting controlling interest, though there is a group assembled by him. Orioles fans will hope that this finally means the O’s can be run like a big-boy team. They’re coming off a 101-win season with exciting young players.

The simple willingness to pay for it is all the Orioles have missed. The O’s payroll right now is projected to be $81 million. Given that Rubenstein has been chasing ownership of a couple teams in the mid-Atlantic — he tried to buy both the Commanders and Nationals — there is some hope that this is something of a passion play for him.