2 Women Say Former NHLer Reid Boucher Attempted to Solicit Photos of Them as Teens

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Two women have said former NHL player Reid Boucher attempted to solicit photos from them when they were teenagers, per The Athletic’s Katie Strang. 

One of the women, who is now 25 years old, told Strang that Boucher, then 20, sent her a message on Facebook asking for inappropriate pictures of herself. She was 17 at the time.

“It made me feel like he knew he had this advantage on someone like me,” she said.

The other woman, now 22, said Boucher’s recent guilty plea to criminal sexual conduct in the 2011 assault of a 12-year-old girl convinced her to come forward. 

“It’s just behavior that doesn’t really go away,” she told Strang. Strang noted the second woman was 15 when Boucher contacted her; he was 21.

The 22-year-old woman said she originally met Boucher in January 2012 at a dinner event coordinated by a minor hockey association in the area where her family lived. He was playing for the Sarnia Sting of the Ontario Hockey League at the time. 

She told Strang it was two years later when Boucher sent her a message on Facebook. 

“Initially, I was very confused,” the woman said. “I thought maybe it was something not creepy. But as soon as the conversation started, I knew it was not a normal conversation.”

Victoria Burton-Harris, Washtenaw County’s chief assistant prosecutor, told Strang her office is aware of the latest allegations.

“If and when we receive supplemental police reports on these allegations, we believe it is certainly something the court may wish to consider at sentencing,” she said.

Boucher is currently playing in the Kontinental Hockey League with the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. Per Darcie Moran of the Detroit Free Press, he pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct against a minor in a Washtenaw County Trial Court on Dec. 13. 

According to Moran, Boucher, then 17, assaulted a 12-year-old girl whose family was hosting him while he was playing for a USA hockey development program. 

The 28-year-old was originally charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct, but Moran noted the judge agreed to let him plea to a lesser charge “and agreed to sentence him with no upfront jail time through the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act, or HYTA. Under HYTA, the case won’t appear on Boucher’s public record if he successfully completes his sentence.” 

Strang noted that “certain sexual crimes are explicitly excluded” from the HYTA, including assaults of people under 13, assaults by a member of the same household and those in which “force or coercion” are used. Executive director of the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence Sarah Rennie told Strang “the plea should not have been allowed, given the scope of HYTA and the facts of the case.”

Boucher played six seasons in the NHL from 2013-19 with three different teams. He has been playing in Russia since 2020.