WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
A former Winnipeg hockey coach has pleaded guilty to sexual assault and luring after being charged last year in connection with what police described as a sexually exploitative relationship with a teenage player.
Madison Biluk was charged in November 2023 with a list of offences that also included sexual exploitation and possessing child pornography for abuse police said happened over about two years between 2019 and 2021.
Biluk, who’s from Winnipeg, coached with Hockey Manitoba from 2018 to 2023 and is accused of “grooming and gaining the trust of the survivor” while she was a coach in her 20s, police said previously. The abuse started when the girl was younger than 16 but continued after Biluk was no longer the teen’s coach, they said.
The situation came to light last October through a social media post made by the survivor. Police said at the time they started investigating after getting a tip from someone else “within the hockey organization,” and that the survivor came forward to them after that.
Biluk, who is no longer coaching, appeared in court Wednesday afternoon alongside a group of family members. She remains on bail under conditions. The remaining charges she faced were stayed.
She previously worked for multiple sports teams and in at least two Manitoba school divisions.
That includes work in the Evergreen School Division, where she volunteered as a basketball coach at Gimli High School from 2014-20, completed a student-teaching practicum at that school in 2019-20 and worked as a substitute in the division for three days in 2022. In 2017, she won the Basketball Manitoba award for AA girls coach of the year.
She spent the 2021-22 season as head coach of the U18 AA Rocky Mountain Raiders, based in Okotoks, Alta., and returned to Manitoba to work in 2022 and worked as a sessional on-ice instructor at the Churchill Hockey Academy in October and November of that year.
Biluk has also coached with two elite teams in Manitoba: the U18 AAA Winnipeg Ice and the Interlake Lightning female U18 AAA team.
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.
