NHL commissioner Gary Bettman at a U.S. Senate Committee hearing on drug use in professional sports.

NHL unveils new drug testing policy

CTV.ca News Staff

The National Hockey League revealed its new anti-doping policy on Wednesday during a U.S. Senate Committee hearing on drug use in professional sports.

At the same time, the league is saying that a proposed federal legislation to crack down on performance enhancing drugs in the U.S. is unnecessary.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Ted Saskin testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

The committee is one of four looking into steroid policies in U.S. athletics, and the possible need for federal legislation which would mandate certain minimum standards.

Under hockey's new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), the NHL and its Players' Association have established a Performance Enhancing Substances Program.

Under it, NHL players are subject to up to two, no-notice, random tests during the NHL season for the performance enhancing drugs designated on the Word Anti-Doping Agency out-of-competition list.

Positive tests will result in the follow punishment:

• 20 game suspension for the first offence;
• 60 game suspension for the second offence;  
• permanent suspension for the third offence.

"It is our conviction that, as a general matter, performance enhancing drugs are not a pervasive problem in the NHL," said Bettman in a statement.

"Nevertheless, we believe that fans in particular, and the public at large, are entitled -- and deserve -- to have confidence that our games are being played in a steroid-free environment."

In the U.S., public trust has been undermined lately by professional sports players, mostly from baseball, being caught with steroids in their bodies.

The latest high profile athlete to be fingered was baseball player Rafael Palmeiro, who was suspended last month for 10 days for violating Major League Baseball's steroids policy.

Palmeiro, once considered a shoe-in for baseball's Hall of Fame, became the highest-profile player among the seven who failed a test under the toughened major league policy that took effect in March.

That has put the pressure on other sports to follow suit.

"There's a lot of pressure from worldwide bodies to be clean in sports," Toronto Maple Leafs coach Pat Quinn told CTV. He said one way to accomplish that is to impose stiff penalties to those who abuse steroids and other performance enhancing drugs.

"We want drug-free sports, for sure. Both for our guys here and for our kids all over the nation."

Leafs' centre Eric Lindros said he's not aware of any hockey players taking drugs, but added that those players who would be most affected by the new rules are the so-called enforcers -- those who have carved out a niche in the league with their fists rather than playmaking prowess.

"I think people that it affects the most are the fighters in our league. I think (drugs would give them) a huge advantage, and it's probably not a safe advantage," Lindros told CTV.

David (Moose) Morissette was one of those enforcers who is now warning young players that steroids and stimulants helped to end his hockey career.

Morissette said he began taking steroids in 1991, shortly after he was drafted by the Washington Capitals. He also used stimulants such as the cold remedy Sudafed and a caffeine-and-ephedrine mix called Ripped Fuel while playing junior hockey.

He hopes to warn young players off performance-enhancing drugs through his book, Memoires d'Un Dur a Cuire (Memoires of an Enforcer).

Unlike what former baseball slugger Jose Canseco did with his book, Juiced, Morissette doesn't name any players who used drugs, but he did say the use of use of steroids and stimulants is common in the NHL.

''There were steroids before me and there will be steroids after. The system is such that young people are ready to do anything to get maximum performance,'' Morissette said earlier this year.

Aside from the NHL's new drug testing policy, the league and players' association has also come up with a jointly-administered Performance Enhancing Substances Program.

It will include:

• educating players regarding the health risks posed by the use of prohibited performance enhancing substances;
• the treatment of players who have used prohibited substances; and
• the deterrence and prevention of such use through education, random no-notice testing and the imposition of disciplinary penalties where appropriate.

Major League Baseball, meanwhile, is saying it may enact tougher steroids rules.

Donald Fehr, the players' union chief, told the U.S. Congress on Wednesday that he's not sure when an agreement on new testing would be reached between the union and the league, but that he expects a policy to be in place by the World Series next month.

Major League Baseball's drug policies are considered the weakest of the four major sports, and the U.S. federal government is threatening to intervene in the league's policing of players for banned substances.

Sen. John McCain has been a longtime supporter of stricter drug standards in sports, and on Wednesday the Republican from Arizona blasted Fehr for not moving quickly enough to reach an agreement with baseball on drug testing.

"Are you and the players living in such a rarefied atmosphere that you do not appreciate that this is a transcending issue?" McCain asked Fehr.

"Don't you get it? This is an issue which is greater than the issue of collective bargaining. It's about young Americans who are tempted to take these substances into their bodies and some of them commit suicide."

Major League Baseball proposed new drug policies earlier this year, but so far hasn't been able to reach a deal with the players' union.

With a report by CTV's Scott Laurie in Toronto