Former gymnastics club president files complaint after coach’s discipline kept secret

The former president of a gymnastics club in Airdrie, Alta., has filed a complaint against the Alberta Gymnastics Federation (AGF) over its decision to keep secret the sanctions levied in 2018 against one of the gym’s high-profile coaches.

Brandy Dalcin, who was a board member of the Airdrie Edge Gymnastics Club from September 2018 to September 2020 and was the gym’s president from September 2020 to June 2021, told TSN in an interview that she filed the complaint on Sunday with W&W Dispute Resolution Services, the AGF’s third-party complaint manager, because she believes information about coach discipline should be made public.

The specific sanctions Airdrie Edge coach Jamie Atkin agreed to in early 2018 – eight months before Dalcin became an Airdrie Edge board member – were never made public and should have been provided to incoming officials with the gym, Dalcin said in an interview with TSN.

A public service announcement posted on the AGF’s website as a non-searchable PDF document on Feb. 16, 2018, said that Atkin had agreed to a series of sanctions. The only sanction detailed in the document was his ban from representing the AGF until July 15, 2018. Other details were confidential, the document said.

“Kids are vulnerable and it’s expected that they and their parents put their full trust in their coaches,” Dalcin said. “With that trust comes accountability. Parents should have the right to know about sanctions that have been made against coaches. The AGF dropped the ball. Why wouldn’t board members at his own club be told about this? What else don’t we know? What else has AGF not told us?”

Atkin, 50, did not respond to phone calls to the Airdrie Edge gym or email requests for comment. AGF executive director Robin McDougall did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Atkin has coached at Airdrie Edge since 1994 and was Gymnastics Canada’s trampoline and tumbling coach of the year in 2010. His gym has helped to train national team athletes, including former world champion Corissa Boychuk and national team member Mark Armstrong. The club says on its website that it has more than 1,000 members and offers programs for all ages “from babies just starting to walk through to adults.”

Dalcin said she decided to make a complaint after watching Broken: Inside the Toxic Culture of Canadian Gymnastics, a new TSN/CTV W5/CraveCanada co-production. The documentary highlights how Gymnastics Canada, provincial federations, and clubs across the country – including Airdrie Edge – have historically responded to misconduct complaints made against coaches.

Dalcin’s complaint is related to how the AGF responded to complaints made against Atkin five years ago.

Following complaints made in 2017 to the provincial federation by two coaches who alleged he had an inappropriate relationship with an Airdrie Edge gymnast and had violated the AGF’s code of conduct, Atkin avoided a formal hearing by agreeing to a series of terms and conditions that were detailed in a Jan. 16, 2018, memo. Robyn Fox, one of the coaches who made the complaint, provided TSN with a copy of the memo.

According to the memo, Atkin agreed to conditions involving the young woman with whom he had been accused of having an inappropriate relationship, including ceasing “all unnecessary physical contact, including touching and massaging, caresses,” as well as “hand-holding, hugging or other contact/conduct involving her which may reasonably be construed as inappropriate.”

Atkin also agreed to not to spend time with the gymnast at any gym without another person present until June 30, 2018. After that time, he agreed to maintain a professional coach-athlete relationship with her, in compliance with the Coaching Association of Canada’s code of conduct.

That memo says that Atkin’s June 20, 2017, ban from representing the AGF in any capacity would extend to July 15, 2018.

It also says he agreed to attend a “healthy relationships workshop or training course,” a business management course that focused on proper management practices and ethical behaviour, and the Coaching Association of Canada’s course “Make Ethical Decisions.” Atkin was required to complete the courses before June 30, 2018, and provide the AGF with proof he had attended them.

Less than two months after Atkin agreed to those sanctions, Cindy Hodges, whose daughter had trained at Airdrie Edge before moving to another gym, wrote another complaint about Atkin to then-AGF board chair Katie Biberdorf and James Smellie, a Calgary lawyer who had previously been hired by the federation to investigate Atkin.

Hodges, who provided TSN with her email correspondence with the AGF, wrote that after reading the AGF’s post about Atkin, she wanted to know how the federation was ensuring that the terms and conditions were being followed. (Hodges said she was sent a copy of the post by the AGF because her daughter had been a witness during the federation’s investigation into Atkin’s conduct.)

“I do not believe that it is reasonable at this stage, given the past and current events, to expect this to be regulated by anybody other than the AGF,” Hodges wrote in her Mar. 2, 2018, email. “I feel very strongly that the AGF’s first duty of care is to the athletes and it must ensure their safety above all else. I also feel that professional codes of conduct should be made very clear and upheld consistently across all clubs, irregardless of how individual clubs’ governing bodies feel about it.”

Biberdorf responded to Hodges three days later. “We will be addressing this immediately with the highest level of priority, including a commitment to act and report back as soon as possible,” Biberdorf wrote in a March 5, 2018, email. Hodges said she never heard back from Biberdorf.

Biberdorf, who now works for the city of Grande Prairie, Alta., did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Two days after Broken debuted on CraveCanada, Airdrie Edge management wrote in a Nov. 7 email to parents that one of the gym’s “adult athletes was going through a mental health crisis and found her safe place to be at our gym. Her coach Jamie Atkin and his family were her support system for some time until she was able to reach out to other professionals and start getting better. The emotional support for the adult athlete from Jamie and his family was misconstrued as a possible romantic relationship by people watching from the outside.”

The email said that “a couple of comments and details” in the TSN/CTV/CraveCanada documentary about Airdrie Edge were “outright lies, and the rest were careful misrepresentations of events to fit the story they were trying to tell.” The email was signed “Airdrie Edge Gymnastics.”

In her Nov. 27 complaint against the AGF, Dalcin wrote that she asked during a Nov. 15 meeting with the Airdrie Edge board of directors whether Atkin had provided proof that he had completed the courses he agreed to take in settling the complaints against him. Dalcin said that none of the Airdrie board members could answer her question.

“It makes me wonder how many other instances like this have happened that members of the gymnastics community did not receive notice of,” Dalcin wrote in her complaint. “All violations of the Coaches Association of Canada’s Code of Conduct need to be handled in a clear, prompt and consistent manner. Transparency regarding sanctions imposed on coaches, staff, and volunteers should become the norm for AGF… The members of the sport need to know what is acceptable conduct and what to do when the line has been crossed.”

Gymnasts for Change Canada, an advocacy group co-founded by former AGF board member Kim Shore, has also asked the AGF for clarity over how Airdrie Edge will be held accountable.

In a two-page letter sent Nov. 13 to the AGF, Gymnasts for Change Canada said there have been repeated complaints over the past five years to the provincial federation and Gymnastics Canada about Airdrie Edge. Shore says the group has the support of more than 500 current and former gymnasts.

“Historically, the solution has been to dismiss, deny or delay action which functioned to dissuade follow-up by complainants and discourage future complainants,” Gymnasts for Change Canada wrote. “Airdrie Edge has enabled a sexualized environment to flourish which effects many past and present athletes, along with bullying, intimidation, retribution, and verbal abuse.”