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BostonAJ
They fucking won?
I'm not naive. I'm sure there are NHLers that get away with juicing. I wouldn't be shocked to learn that there are two or three players on every team that do it. The NHL is known to be lax among the four sports when it comes to steroid testing. They don't test in the playoffs. They don't test during the off season. They don't test for HGH. To date, Sean Hill is the only NHL player to get caught and he recieved a 20 game suspension. Jose Theodore and Bryan Berard tested positive during international play, but were not punished by the NHL.
The NHL's performance-enhancing drug policy, enacted three years ago by the league and players union, does not permit testing during the playoffs and off-season. It's a five-month window in which the only enforcement against doping is the honor system.
Doping experts do not endorse that approach:
"You would have to be an idiot to get caught under a system like that -- an absolute moron," said Charles Yesalis, a Penn State University professor who specializes in the use and impact of performance- enhancing substances. "To me, you have to go far beyond that testing system to have a true sense of whether players are not doping."...
National doping experts say the NHL policy is "woefully inadequate" and too flawed to allow a judgment on what percentage of players might be using steroids, stimulants or other banned substances.
"I think most people in professional sports wish the problem away," said Dr. Gary Wadler, a New York official with the World Anti-Doping Agency and an expert on drug use in sports. "They tweak their programs to take the heat off, but there hasn't been any heat on hockey."
Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock noticed a change in body types in the mid-1990s, and it wasn't a subtle one. Hitchcock coached minor-league hockey then and recalled marveling at the physical transformations on the ice. "Guys changed over the summer in a huge way," Hitchcock said. "Small guys became big. There was a time maybe 15 years ago that you thought, 'What's going on here?'
The problem with a stricter doping policy is that it can really damage the league. Look at baseball. We now know (or pretty much know) that greats such as Bonds, Clemens, ARod, Ramirez, Sosa and others have used steroids. All of their accomplishments are now viewed as tarnished thru the eyes of many fans. Imagine if we were to learn that Ovie and Crosby juice. Or Yzerman. Or Gretzky. The respect we have for these players would drop significantly.
I'd like to see the NHL get tougher on steroids and remove them completely from the game. But I'd also like them to do it quietly. I'm not sure how that could be accomplished.
The NHL's performance-enhancing drug policy, enacted three years ago by the league and players union, does not permit testing during the playoffs and off-season. It's a five-month window in which the only enforcement against doping is the honor system.
Doping experts do not endorse that approach:
"You would have to be an idiot to get caught under a system like that -- an absolute moron," said Charles Yesalis, a Penn State University professor who specializes in the use and impact of performance- enhancing substances. "To me, you have to go far beyond that testing system to have a true sense of whether players are not doping."...
National doping experts say the NHL policy is "woefully inadequate" and too flawed to allow a judgment on what percentage of players might be using steroids, stimulants or other banned substances.
"I think most people in professional sports wish the problem away," said Dr. Gary Wadler, a New York official with the World Anti-Doping Agency and an expert on drug use in sports. "They tweak their programs to take the heat off, but there hasn't been any heat on hockey."
Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock noticed a change in body types in the mid-1990s, and it wasn't a subtle one. Hitchcock coached minor-league hockey then and recalled marveling at the physical transformations on the ice. "Guys changed over the summer in a huge way," Hitchcock said. "Small guys became big. There was a time maybe 15 years ago that you thought, 'What's going on here?'
The problem with a stricter doping policy is that it can really damage the league. Look at baseball. We now know (or pretty much know) that greats such as Bonds, Clemens, ARod, Ramirez, Sosa and others have used steroids. All of their accomplishments are now viewed as tarnished thru the eyes of many fans. Imagine if we were to learn that Ovie and Crosby juice. Or Yzerman. Or Gretzky. The respect we have for these players would drop significantly.
I'd like to see the NHL get tougher on steroids and remove them completely from the game. But I'd also like them to do it quietly. I'm not sure how that could be accomplished.
