For months, Brooke Wilfley raised concerns that the president of her local youth hockey governing board was using his position for profit.
The Denver-area hockey mom discovered that the president, Randy Kanai, was secretly routing the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s money through his private company.
She reported his conflicts of interest and mismanagement to everyone she could: board members, club directors, coaches and four USA Hockey leaders who oversee the nonprofit. Little was done.
Then in January 2023, Wilfley received a letter from the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s attorney. The board, it said, was launching an investigation.
Into her.
Seeking evidence of “libelous and slanderous statements,” the letter demanded Wilfley hand over two years of her emails, texts, calendars, phone logs and any other records of her conversations about the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s finances. It gave her 21 days to turn in her cellphones, computers and iPads for a forensic review.
“This is an important legal duty,” the letter said, “and failure to follow these instructions may subject you to discipline.”
Whistleblower retaliation occurs in every industry. But in few sectors is the threat more personal than in youth sports, where parents who speak up about corruption and financial exploitation risk repercussions not just for themselves, but for their children.
Those fears are acute in youth hockey, where across the country, powerful rink operators, club directors and local governing body officials control the pathways by which kids advance to the sport’s highest stages. Many parents who suspect wrongdoing stay quiet out of fear of jeopardizing their kids’ opportunities. What some view as lax oversight from USA Hockey enables bad actors to flourish.
For Wilfley, the ramifications of the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s threats extended beyond her family. As the head of a Denver hockey academy and Tier I club – the top level of youth competition – dozens of parents entrusted her with their kids’ futures. Formal discipline against her club or a libel and slander lawsuit could affect those kids’ ability to play.
In the face of the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s threats, Wilfley didn’t back down. But it cost her: reputational damage, more than $100,000 in legal bills and three years she can’t get back.
“This is what happens when you speak up,” Wilfley told USA TODAY. “You get bullied. You get threatened. They’ll hurt your kids.
“I would never wish this on anybody.”
Conflicts of interest
Wilfley had never been a hockey fan. She became immersed in the sport when her five kids fell in love with it.
A law school grad who specialized in child advocacy, she saw how high costs and limited opportunities caused kids to quit the sport or leave the state for better options. She looked for ways to keep kids playing close to home.
She started a program that partnered with high schools to offer low-cost hockey lessons.
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down in-person learning in many schools, she opened Aces Sports Academy, an accredited school where third to eighth graders spend the mornings on ice and the rest of their days in class.
In early 2022, she partnered with Okanagan Hockey Group, a Canadian youth hockey program, to start a recreational team in Colorado.
The Colorado Amateur Hockey Association, the regional USA Hockey governing body that regulates the sport in her state, sanctioned her programs. Kanai, its president since 2012, supported them – until they became Tier I.
Around the same time that Wilfley started her rec team, the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association announced its intent to strip the Colorado Springs Tigers, another local youth hockey club, of its Tier I status unless it fielded two more teams. So in April 2022, Brian Copeland, the Tigers’ president, approached Wilfley about merging their clubs.
Wilfley jumped at the opportunity. Before ever playing a game, her club ascended to the most coveted echelon of youth hockey. That didn’t sit well with Kanai and some other board members.
“They never went through the process to formally apply. They just made it happen,’ Kanai said. “We didn’t like that she had found the back door.’
Kanai responded with a series of requirements that Wilfley felt unfairly targeted her club. He announced audits of a ‘sampling” of clubs, including hers. He made her restructure parts of her businesses. He said the association would honor her club’s Tier I designation only if her players wear Tigers jerseys and play games in Colorado Springs – an hour drive from Denver.
Wilfley spent thousands of dollars on new uniforms and legal expenses, only for Kanai to announce the board’s intent to eliminate one of the state’s four Tier I licenses. Wilfley felt her club was on the chopping block.
Suspecting a personal or financial motive for his actions, Wilfley scoured the nonprofit’s tax returns, bylaws and individual board members’ business filings, searching for conflicts of interest.
She didn’t find the motive she was looking for. What she found was even more troubling.
She discovered a dozen for-profit companies and trade names registered to Kanai that matched the names of Colorado Amateur Hockey Association programs. One called “Team Colorado” shared the same name as the association’s girls’ hockey teams. Others, like “CO Hockey” and “Rocky Mountain Sport Testing,” she recognized from the association’s website and payments she had made for her son’s hockey camps.
Wilfley also found that the association had not filed tax returns or held annual board elections in three years.
Concerned that Kanai was profiting off his volunteer position, Wilfley in September 2022 reported her findings to USA Hockey general counsel Casey Jorgensen and other top officials, emails show. But months passed, and little action was taken.
That December, with a board vote to potentially eliminate her Tier I status looming, Wilfley hired an attorney to formally request the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s meeting minutes and internal accounting records – as is her right under state law – including all its transactions with Kanai’s companies. She also demanded proper board elections be held.
That’s when Wilfley received the letter from the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s general counsel, Peter Schaffer. Its title: “Notice of Spoliation and Investigation.”
Hockey mom fights retaliation
Wilfley knew the demand for her private data was likely unlawful. But waiting for the legal system to play out was a luxury she didn’t have.
With the state championships weeks away, even interim disciplinary action against her club could result in her players’ disqualification. Defending herself from a libel or slander lawsuit – even a frivolous one – could cripple her businesses’ and family’s finances.
Days before the 21-day deadline to turn over her electronic devices for a “forensic accounting,” Wilfley had not yet responded. Schaffer ratcheted up the pressure. By refusing to comply, he wrote in a Feb. 9, 2023, email, her programs were now “in violation” of their USA Hockey member agreements.
“We will have no alternative,” his email said, “but to commence disciplinary procedures.”
Wilfley called a meeting to brief parents on the situation.
“I had to stand in front of those families and say, ‘I’m so sorry. Your kids have been amazing this season, but I don’t know if they’re going to be allowed to compete in the state championships,’” Wilfley said.
Meanwhile, she fought back.
She hired an outside accounting firm to scrutinize the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s finances, based on the limited records Schaffer provided in response to her requests. The firm’s report – which she sent to USA Hockey – found six-figure discrepancies and previously undisclosed transactions with Kanai’s companies.
The day of the deadline, her attorney sent a lengthy response to Schaffer, the association’s board members and Jorgensen, USA Hockey’s legal counsel. It accused Kanai and Schaffer of whistleblower retaliation and violating the association’s bylaws. Wilfley reiterated her concerns about Kanai’s conflicts of interests and failures to hold annual elections or file tax returns since 2019.
Finally, five months after she first reported her concerns to USA Hockey, the national governing body intervened.
“USA Hockey is very concerned with the ongoing governance and operational issues within the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association,” Jorgensen wrote in a Feb. 14, 2023, letter to Kanai.
USA Hockey would launch its own investigation into the association’s finances and compliance with whistleblower and conflict-of-interest policies, Jorgensen’s letter said. It ordered Kanai and Schaffer to “immediately cease” any disciplinary action against Wilfley’s program, adding that they had no legal authority to demand her records.
Two months later, USA Hockey hired its own outside accounting firm to forensically audit the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s finances, based in part on Wilfley’s outside firm’s report. USA Hockey President Mike Trimboli appointed three USA Hockey representatives to oversee its annual board election, which Kanai had postponed with less than a day’s notice.
The association’s members voted Kanai out of office at the rescheduled meeting in May 2023 after more than a decade as president. His successor, Brian Smith – whose son plays for Wilfley’s club – and the board moved to fire Schaffer days later.
USA Hockey in July 2023 suspended Kanai from all hockey activities for refusing to comply with its audit. The Colorado Amateur Hockey Association sued him that October, accusing him of stealing at least $180,000 of the nonprofit’s money by routing it through one of his private companies – the one Wilfley discovered.
‘Crazy hockey mom’
Kanai and Schaffer were gone from Colorado youth hockey. But their attacks on Wilfley continued.
They both subpoenaed Wilfley as part of defamation lawsuits they filed against the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association and two of its new board members: Smith and Bill Brierly, its executive vice president. Schaffer filed a motion to hold Wilfley in contempt of court for refusing to comply.
Judges ultimately quashed the subpoenas. But Wilfley spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting them, she said – money she hasn’t gotten back, even after Schaffer dropped his case, and Kanai lost his.
The Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s lawsuit against Kanai went to a civil trial in April 2025 in Jefferson County District Court. In his testimony, Kanai didn’t deny profiting off his position as president. He argued he was allowed to do so.
He portrayed himself as the victim of a “smear campaign” by Wilfley. In his testimony and subsequent interviews with USA TODAY, he painted her as a parent so hellbent on getting a Tier I team for her kids that she orchestrated a plot to take him down.
“They weren’t happy with our decision on Tier I, so ‘Hey, let’s figure out what we can do to get these guys voted out,’” Kanai said. “It was all to influence the board vote, and they got what they wanted.”
He acknowledged in court having “no direct evidence” of that. Of the 10 people called to testify, she wasn’t one of them. His other witnesses, however, spent much of their time on the stand supporting his version of events.
“She wanted Tier I now, and that’s when the attacks came,” said Jason Schofield, Kanai’s business partner and a fellow board member who also admitted profiting $180,000 from Kanai’s company, in an interview with USA TODAY after the trial.
Testified Schaffer: “Never before the Brooke Wilfley situation were there any issues about the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association and finances.”
Judge Chantel Contiguglia didn’t buy it. Her October 2025 ruling found Kanai liable for civil theft, unjust enrichment, conversion and breach of fiduciary duty. She ordered him to repay the nonprofit $579,000 – triple the amount he stole, plus interest – and cover its court costs and attorney’s fees.
The ruling – which Kanai appealed in November – vindicated Wilfley. Yet many in the Colorado hockey community still accept Kanai’s version of events. The recent success of her teams – now among the top-ranked in the country – and the election of Smith, one of her player’s fathers, as Kanai’s successor as president only fueled those rumors.
“’Crazy hockey mom’ is a really easy narrative,” Wilfley said. “It’s been three years of that. It just does not stop.”
Better oversight needed
Wilfley is grateful to USA Hockey for intervening and to the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s new leadership for pursuing the lawsuit against Kanai. But better oversight by both organizations’ boards, she believes, could have saved her many sleepless nights.
“The hardest thing for me is the toll it has taken on my family and the time,” Wilfley said. “I would go home and stay up at night worrying about all these other kids, just feeling like the rug was constantly being pulled out from under me.”
Conflicts of interest and financial exploitation are rampant in youth hockey, said Brierly, the Colorado Amateur Hockey Association’s executive vice president whom Schaffer sued for defamation – a lawsuit Schaffer later dropped. Examining business affiliations of people who serve on the sport’s regional governing bodies should fall on USA Hockey, Brierly said – not individual parents.
Brierly said USA Hockey should enact better standards and controls to identify mismanagement and abuses of power in the sport long before they become issues.
“It’s expensive enough to play hockey,” Brierly said. “It’s more expensive when you’re also paying opportunistic individuals who are trying to make a dollar. That’s something USA Hockey should protect people against, but they obviously don’t care about protecting parents from financial abuse.”
USA Hockey did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
After the trial, Schaffer told USA TODAY that he truly believed he had the legal authority to demand access to Wilfley’s private records and electronic devices. Sending her a notice of spoliation and investigation, he said, “is the least level of aggression you can do.”
“If they’re not guilty, they would have sent it to us,” Schaffer said. “But they fought us. As much as they fought, it just made me know that they were guilty because they wouldn’t give it to us.”
Kanai, for his part, acknowledged after the trial that Wilfley’s concerns about his financial entanglements with the association were “legitimate.” Still, he said he and other board members, including his business partner, Schofield, felt they had to take action to protect their reputations as rumors swirled.
‘We were pretty sure there were slanderous and defamation comments in texts and emails going around, so we were trying to put a stop to it and get evidence that that was truly going on,” Kanai told USA TODAY.
“Did we go too far? It’s debatable.”
He maintained that every decision he made as president was guided by what’s best for the kids.
Kenny Jacoby is an investigative reporter for USA TODAY who covers issues in sports, higher education and law enforcement. Contact him by email at kjacoby@usatoday.com. Follow him on X @kennyjacoby or Bluesky @kennyjacoby.bsky.social.