A three-and-half-decade healing process for a former Swift Current minor hockey alum has taken a leap forward.

That step came just days before Christmas last year by Todd Tisdale upon sharing details on his two-month stint at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in 1986.

"It's actually like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, I can actually tell people 100 per cent of the truth and 100 per cent of what happened to me," he said. "And not PG-rate it or anything like that and it feels good to get it out. What happened to me was not right."

His account, which was published in a TSN piece by Rick Westhead, included details of abuse, hazing, assault, and more. Tisdale said from the moment he arrived at the campus in the fall he began picking up on warning signs that only progressed.

"It started off with stuff like going to drop my new 'old boy's' laundry off at the laundry depot or getting him a pizza pop," he explained. "It was the old boys that can make the new boys do

Tisdale spent countless hours growing up at Riverdene Park playing on the outdoor rink anything."

The 15-year-old centre didn't envision having to carry out tasks like those for veteran Hounds players - or 'old boys' - when writing a letter to the admissions board just a few months prior.

"It was pretty fast getting in there," he recalled. "Before I knew it I was in a dorm and in my bed and just trying to have a good time. But it didn't end up that way."

Tisdale's fleeting stint in Wilcox got progressively worse.

"If they wanted us to give them a massage, we had to give them a massage. It was kind of different," he said. "It then got into worse stuff than that."

Tisdale said other instances included regular beatings and alleged sexual abuses.

Before partaking in any games wearing a Notre Dame sweater, he made a run for it to his girlfriend's place in Regina.

"She came and picked me up," he described. "Notre Dame had a few of their fellows pick me up the next day and bring me back and told me I was expelled from the school... I was kind of happy."

Tisdale said it was a feeling he hadn't experienced much since leaving home for the private boarding school; but one he longed for.

"It was such a high level of hockey it was almost mind-blowing to be accepted to go there, I was on cloud nine," he said.

Tisdale's experience at the school was completely different than what his older brother Tim encountered just a year prior.

"He was a member of the top hockey team, so he was not touched by the bullies and the abusers," he said.

Tisdale tried out for the Hounds AAA team while attending Notre Dame but he didn't quite have the skill set his brother possessed.

"He was a lot bigger than me, skill-wise he was smoother, a good puck handler, a good skater, a good natural hockey player," he remembered. "I had to work, I was a good skater. I spent hours down there at Riverdene Park skating... My skill lacked a little bit."

The younger Tisdale even had the privilege to skate alongside future NHL all-star Rod Brind'Amour during tryouts who also dormed below him.

Even after falling short in his audition for the Hounds, Tisdale practiced with a lesser Notre Dame team, comparing it to a AA league.

"It was still better hockey than I would be playing in Swift Current and better coaching," he said. "Not to discount Swift Current but Notre Dame was just one step above."

Tisdale was back in Swift Current lacing them up for the AA hometown team before he knew it and later played some rec hockey locally too. The alleged incidents in Wilcox not only deterred him from reaching his goal of playing in the SJHL or AAA, but it's also ruined the game from afar.

"It put a tarnish on hockey for me," he said. "I can't even watch the Stanley Cup now, them hoisting the Stanley Cup without starting to cry."

The current Medicine Hat resident didn't divulge much to his family after returning home and they didn't know the full extent of the trauma until the in-depth article written by Rick Westhead came out on December 22, 2021.

"There's been really good support from friends and family, it's been great," Tisdale said.

He credited Kyle Beach and Theo Fleury for helping him go public with his story.

Athol Murray College of Notre Dame acknowledged in an email yesterday that court proceedings initiated by Tisdale began in 2018 and named the school as the only defendant.

"He is claiming damages for abuse he is alleged to have suffered at the hands of other students while he attended the college in the fall of 1986," the school's statement said. "The lawsuit is still before the court. Notre Dame cannot comment further on this matter publicly at this time as the lawsuit is still underway."

Tisdale said he's never received an apology from Notre Dame. His Saskatoon-based lawyer is in the process of preparing papers to serve them.

"I'm going to fight until I get some changes here," he said. "It's not going to be easy but I'm going to do it."