Nine individuals nominated for Hockey Canada's board of directors were elected on Saturday. They will serve a one-year term.

Hockey Canada has officially elected nine individuals to make up the organization’s new board of directors.

Announced earlier in the week, the nine now officially elected members were selected by Hockey Canada's “independent nominating committee” from more than 550 received applications.

The vote, which took place virtually, was conducted by member organizations of Hockey Canada from each province and territory.

“The nominees we’ve put forward represent the very best of Canadian society: bringing together the knowledge and experience necessary to create a new era in hockey that focuses on governance and cultural evolution,” said Michael Bruni, chair of the nominating committee in a Hockey Canada press release on Monday.

The wholesale replacement of Hockey Canada’s board of directors came after former Supreme Court justice Thomas Cromwell released his review of the organization’s governance, recommending none of the current members returned to their positions. In October, following weeks of immense public pressure, Hockey Canada’s board announced they would step down and that CEO Scott Smith would not return.

Leading the new board of directors will be Hugh L. Fraser, who was elected as chair. Fraser is a former judge serving as a Justice in the Ontario Court of Justice and also served on the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for several years.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us and we are determined to enact the changes Canadians expect of Hockey Canada,” Fraser said in a statement on Saturday. “Hockey means so much to our country and we will be committed to making sure that Hockey Canada is an organization that is transparent and accountable to all Canadians, and is worthy of their trust.”

Fraser is no stranger to sports, including hockey, as his son Mark Fraser is a former NHL player and currently works in a player development role with the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs focusing on equity and inclusion.

Fraser was a prominent athlete himself, representing Canada in the 200-meter event at the 1976 Olympics.

According to his Hockey Canada provided biography, Fraser is a “recognized international expert in sports law” and has held numerous positions in Canadian sport including as president of the Sports Federation of Canada, president of the Commonwealth Games Foundation of Canada and on the board of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport.

Additional members of the new Hockey Canada board of directors include Grant Borbridge, Cassie Campbell-Pascall, Julie Duranceau, Jonathan Goldbloom, Marian Jacko, Marni Fullerton, David Evans and Andrea Poole.

Campbell-Pascall is likely the most familiar name to hockey fans having won three Olympic gold medals and eight World Championships representing Canada. Campbell-Pascall is also familiar with Hockey Canada, currently serving with the Hockey Canada Foundation Board and can be seen as a commentator and analyst with Hockey Night in Canada, Sportsnet and ESPN.

Jacko is another notable member of the new board related to hockey experience as Jacko currently serves as the president of the Little NHL, an annual hockey tournament held for Indigenous youth in Ontario.

The remainder of the incoming Hockey Canada board of directors brings a variety of public, private and government experiences including legal, strategic communications, risk management, business management and administration, conflict resolution and mediation, and financial.

According to Hockey Canada, the new board “will be accountable, transparent, and ensure Hockey Canada is an organization that Canadians can be proud of. It is expected one of the Board’s first priorities will be to begin the search for a new chief executive officer to lead the organization, and to focus on building trust, and governance and cultural evolution.”

Cromwell originally recommended Hockey Canada increase its board of directors from nine to 13 members moving forward, which will likely occur when a new multi-year board of directors is elected in 2023 following the one-year term of this new, interim board.

At a recent meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, Cromwell testified that he feels Hockey Canada followed his recommendations in seeking candidates for the new board with various skill sets and diverse backgrounds.

“It certainly appears that the nominating committee tried extremely hard to recruit the sort of board with the sort of profile that I recommended,” Cromwell said. “It’s apparent that a serious effort was made to improve diversity, improve gender balance, improve region experience.”

Now that a new board of directors has been elected, as Cromwell said, the first order of business will be hiring a new CEO and ensuring proper staff are in place to carry out the mandates Hockey Canada set for itself in their action plan.

“(A) new CEO needs to be recruited, and it will be that person’s responsibility to make sure that the rest of the staff of the organization can make up the sorts of people that are needed to carry out the mandate that the board has given them,” Cromwell said.

Results from investigations conducted by Hockey Canada and the NHL related to alleged gang sexual assaults involving Canada’s world junior teams at the 2003 and 2018 World Junior Championships are still to be released.

The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage plans to continue their inquiry into Hockey Canada and abuse in hockey. As MP Chris Bittle, a member of the committee, said in closing remarks at the most recent meeting earlier this month, “We owe it to kids to truly expand this. I don’t know that any meeting that we’ve had, we can really say to ourselves, we’ve made sport safer for kids. Have we made hockey safer for kids? I don’t know.”

What those next steps will look like to make Canadian sport, particularly hockey, safer for participants and communities will depend on the actions Hockey Canada’s new board of directors implement, as well as direction from Sport Canada and recommendations from the standing committee.