The NHL and its players’ union are in talks to amend the league’s collective bargaining agreement to add cocaine and other similar drugs to the list of banned substances.
A league official talked about the growing concern over the drug to TSN’s Rick Westhead:
“The number of [cocaine] positives are more than they were in previous years and they’re going up,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told TSN in an interview. “I wouldn’t say it’s a crisis in any sense. What I’d say is drugs like cocaine are cyclical and you’ve hit a cycle where it’s an ‘in’ drug again.
“I’d be shocked if we’re talking about a couple dozen guys. I don’t want to be naïve here … but if we’re talking more than 20 guys I’d be shocked. Because we don’t test in a comprehensive way, I can’t say.”
Daly’s last line is the most important one here, because NHL players are more or less free to do all the cocaine they want. While players are screened for recreational drugs under the league’s drug-testing policy, they face almost zero chance of sanction unless they are convicted of a drug-related criminal offense.
ESPN.com’s Katie Strang broke down the NHL’s drug-testing system earlier this year in a story about the Los Angeles Kings’ fall from grace. In April, Kings center Jarrett Stoll was caught with cocaine and MDMA in Las Vegas:
The NHL-NHLPA’s joint drug-testing program is not specifically designed to target recreational drugs such as cocaine or marijuana. The Performance Enhancing Substances Program is put into place to do exactly that — screen for performance-enhancing drugs.
The joint NHL-NHLPA program administers extra testing on one-third of tests that screen for recreational drugs, a source confirmed. But even if a player tests positive, it would not trigger a suspension. In fact, it would not even trigger a visit from the Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program doctors unless a result “shows a dangerously high level for a drug of abuse such that it causes concern for the health or safety of the player or others,” according to the CBA.
The program’s doctors warn players in rookie orientation and in team visits during the season about the perils of drug use, but there is skepticism about how effective a lecture from a middle-aged physician is on players. Said a source knowledgeable of the program: “It’s like your parents telling you not to drink.”
Plus, cocaine filters itself out of a person’s system just days after use, making it even harder to catch players using it.
The NHL’s policy differs from every other major professional sports league in the United States. Major League Baseball along with the NFL and NBA prohibit cocaine use by players and punish them if they test positive for it.
About a year before Stoll’s arrest in Las Vegas, Tampa Bay Lightning winger Ryan Malone was charged with cocaine possesion and driving under the influence in Tampa. He pleaded no contest and received 12 months of probation. And according to Westhead, police in Toronto were keeping tabs on the Maple Leafs last season:
Last season, a senior Maple Leafs team executive met with Toronto Police Service officers to address concerns that Leafs players were purportedly using cocaine or were associating with those who were, according to two people familiar with the matter.
According hockey player Rich Clune, who has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction since his time in junior hockey, this is an issue for every NHL team.
“I am certainly not unique. There are players in the NHL right now who are suffering and you would never know it from looking at their stat sheet or how hard they compete in practice,” he wrote last year in the Players Tribune. “When I was 19 with the Barrie Colts, I had 30 goals and 80 points while being a complete wreck off the ice. Plenty of teammates and coaches had suspicions about me over the years, but nobody knew how bad it was. I was just the wild man. Every hockey team has one. Or 10.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...asy-to-get-away-with-it/?tid=trending_strip_3
A league official talked about the growing concern over the drug to TSN’s Rick Westhead:
“The number of [cocaine] positives are more than they were in previous years and they’re going up,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told TSN in an interview. “I wouldn’t say it’s a crisis in any sense. What I’d say is drugs like cocaine are cyclical and you’ve hit a cycle where it’s an ‘in’ drug again.
“I’d be shocked if we’re talking about a couple dozen guys. I don’t want to be naïve here … but if we’re talking more than 20 guys I’d be shocked. Because we don’t test in a comprehensive way, I can’t say.”
Daly’s last line is the most important one here, because NHL players are more or less free to do all the cocaine they want. While players are screened for recreational drugs under the league’s drug-testing policy, they face almost zero chance of sanction unless they are convicted of a drug-related criminal offense.
ESPN.com’s Katie Strang broke down the NHL’s drug-testing system earlier this year in a story about the Los Angeles Kings’ fall from grace. In April, Kings center Jarrett Stoll was caught with cocaine and MDMA in Las Vegas:
The NHL-NHLPA’s joint drug-testing program is not specifically designed to target recreational drugs such as cocaine or marijuana. The Performance Enhancing Substances Program is put into place to do exactly that — screen for performance-enhancing drugs.
The joint NHL-NHLPA program administers extra testing on one-third of tests that screen for recreational drugs, a source confirmed. But even if a player tests positive, it would not trigger a suspension. In fact, it would not even trigger a visit from the Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program doctors unless a result “shows a dangerously high level for a drug of abuse such that it causes concern for the health or safety of the player or others,” according to the CBA.
The program’s doctors warn players in rookie orientation and in team visits during the season about the perils of drug use, but there is skepticism about how effective a lecture from a middle-aged physician is on players. Said a source knowledgeable of the program: “It’s like your parents telling you not to drink.”
Plus, cocaine filters itself out of a person’s system just days after use, making it even harder to catch players using it.
The NHL’s policy differs from every other major professional sports league in the United States. Major League Baseball along with the NFL and NBA prohibit cocaine use by players and punish them if they test positive for it.
About a year before Stoll’s arrest in Las Vegas, Tampa Bay Lightning winger Ryan Malone was charged with cocaine possesion and driving under the influence in Tampa. He pleaded no contest and received 12 months of probation. And according to Westhead, police in Toronto were keeping tabs on the Maple Leafs last season:
Last season, a senior Maple Leafs team executive met with Toronto Police Service officers to address concerns that Leafs players were purportedly using cocaine or were associating with those who were, according to two people familiar with the matter.
According hockey player Rich Clune, who has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction since his time in junior hockey, this is an issue for every NHL team.
“I am certainly not unique. There are players in the NHL right now who are suffering and you would never know it from looking at their stat sheet or how hard they compete in practice,” he wrote last year in the Players Tribune. “When I was 19 with the Barrie Colts, I had 30 goals and 80 points while being a complete wreck off the ice. Plenty of teammates and coaches had suspicions about me over the years, but nobody knew how bad it was. I was just the wild man. Every hockey team has one. Or 10.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...asy-to-get-away-with-it/?tid=trending_strip_3
