No Coincidences With God – Honourable Justice Hugh L. Fraser
November 28, 2023
An excerpt from “Cultural Change in Sport” with the Honourable Justice Hugh L. Fraser, O.C.
Transcript: There Are No Coincidences With God
I’ve been asked many times why did you volunteer to take on this position with Hockey Canada, knowing everything that was happening? It seemed like a no win situation to get involved with: an organization that had lost the trust of so many Canadians. Why would you risk a reputation that you had spent years building up, by trying to help repair a situation that, to many, seemed hopeless or simply not worth the effort?
It was a great question. And I thought of some of the stock answers that people might find plausible, such as hockey had been good to my family. My son was able to play at the highest level and was now working in the front office for one of the NHL’s iconic franchises in Toronto. As a Canadian and a hockey fan, I felt some sort of duty to step up and offer to be part of the solution. I didn’t want kids at the grassroots level to have to pay the price for mistakes that adults may have made.
And all those answers, I think, were accurate and true. But in reality, there is only one answer. It was God’s will for my life that I say yes to the opportunity. I’ve come to believe that there are no coincidences with God.
A few weeks before I’d gotten the call from Hockey Canada, my pastor preached a message about how God can stretch you and put you in places that you haven’t been before. But if you trust Him, He will equip you when He puts you in those places, so that you can serve His will and be witness to His presence in your life.
Honourable Justice Hugh L. Fraser, O.C.
Chair, Hockey Canada Board of Directors
Hon. Hugh Fraser, O.C. was elected as Chair of the Hockey Canada Board of Directors on December 17, 2022. He is a retired Judge, having spent three decades as a Justice of the Ontario Court of Justice in Ottawa and Toronto, Canada. During his time as a full-time judge, he served as Local Administrative Justice in Ottawa, as well as a three year term as Regional Senior Justice for the East Region of Ontario. Since his retirement from full-time judicial service, he has been employed as an arbitrator, mediator, and workplace investigator.
Justice Fraser received his B.A. (Hons.) from Queen’s University in 1974 and his Juris Doctor from the University of Ottawa Law School in 1977.
Prior to his appointment to the bench, Justice Fraser was employed as a lawyer in private practice. He also served on the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for seven years and authored several leading decisions on discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Justice Fraser is an Olympian, “one of Canada’s most decorated sprinters,” having competed for Canada at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal in the 200m sprint and anchored the 4x100m relay team.
He is recognized as an international expert in sports law. He has been on the Court of Arbitration for Sport for 28 years and served on the first ad hoc Court at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, in 1996. He has been a member of several other ADR panels in North America and Europe including, the PGA/LPGA Anti-Doping Panel, the World Athletics Disciplinary Tribunal, the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC), the Swiss Arbitration Association and the International Centre for Dispute Resolution. Justice Fraser has resolved disputes throughout Canada and the U.S. as well as in Australia, Brazil, Grenada, Malaysia and Switzerland.
Justice Fraser currently serves as an independent Arbitrator with the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC), the USOPC Athletes’ Advisory Council and the United States Anti-Doping Agency. He is also a Commissioner with Athletics Canada and is a panel member with the Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services (JAMS), one of the largest ADR providers in the world.
Justice Fraser is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators. In 2020, he was named a co-recipient of the Canadian Bar Association’s President’s Award, given for significant contribution to the legal profession in Canada.
On December 29, 2021, Justice Fraser was appointed as Officer of the Order of Canada, one of the highest civilian honours in the country.
Read more: Hugh Fraser: a trailblazer on the oval and in the courtroom
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