"NHL to discuss drug testing with Congress"

[lanky522]

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story.asp...mp;hubName=nhl

I can MAYBE understand congress getting involved with the NFL (Zero Canadian based teams) and MLB (1 Canadaian based team), but how exactly can one country\'s government even attempt to place regulations on what can best be described as an international corporation like the NHL?

20% of the NHL teams are based in Canada. Therefore, 20% of the games are played in Canada, and (theoretically), 20% of the players likely live in Canada.

Does the Canadian government already have strict preformance enhancing drug regulations on athletes (ie is the U.S. just catching up to the rest of the world), or is the U.S. Congress really just overstepping their reach?

How can any decision by congress be enforced on this league? Will the Canadian players be allowed to dope since they live and play in Canada? Or will there be random testing before games in the U.S.? If so, what punishment can the United States really asses to a hockey player who might not even be a U.S. citizen?

I\'d go as far to say that 25%, if not closer to 50% of hockey players in the NHL AREN\'T United States citizens. If they don\'t get any benefit from the U.S. government, why should they be hassled about what they may or may not consume and/or inject?

I mean, if you come on a plane from Columbia with heroin in your system, but none on your person or in your luggage, you can\'t be arrested or prosecuted simply because you\'re high. So how can the U.S. hassle an athlete just because of a drug/enhancer in his system if he isn\'t even a citizen and he is here on what can best be described as a \"business trip?\"

Thoughts?

[ultrawhiteness]

if it ensures that steroids/hgh are kept out of our sport (or god forbid, taken out of our sport) then i\'m all for it. short term pain man.

[narduch]

Well, the Canadian teams play a bulk of their games in the US. So congress has every right to get involved with them as well.

Also, even if most of the league is Canadian, most of them are earning their living in the US.

[repenttokyo]

I would say an even higher percentage are not US citizens, probably 75.

my opinion is that it\'s all publicity, for both congress and the NHL. The NHL doesn\'t really have any kind of process in place to ensure that people don\'t use performance enhancing drugs. Congress has far far more important things to worry about than professional athletes and their habits. This is an easy way to deflect attention from other things, like the war, or the fact that the economy in the US is spiraling into the toilet. In my opinion.

To add another wrinkle: In Canada, it is very difficult to get a urine or blood test done on an employee, because drug dependence is considered a disability and it is illegal to discriminate based on a disability. So it is extremely unlikely you will see this happening in the NHL.

[lanky522]

repenttokyo wrote:

I would say an even higher percentage are not US citizens, probably 75.

my opinion is that it\'s all publicity, for both congress and the NHL. The NHL doesn\'t really have any kind of process in place to ensure that people don\'t use performance enhancing drugs. Congress has far far more important things to worry about than professional athletes and their habits. This is an easy way to deflect attention from other things, like the war, or the fact that the economy in the US is spiraling into the toilet. In my opinion.

To add another wrinkle: In Canada, it is very difficult to get a urine or blood test done on an employee, because drug dependence is considered a disability and it is illegal to discriminate based on a disability. So it is extremely unlikely you will see this happening in the NHL.

my thoughts exactly on all accounts... (I didn\'t want to say 75% because I thought it might be far-fetched even though I thought it was probably around there too).

I just don\'t understand when exactly it was that the U.S. government got so fuct up... this is one of the biggest stories out of washington d.c. right now (not the upcoming presidential elections, not the housing and economy crisis, not the fed chopping rates right and left). What the hell can congress do anyways?

I understand that the nhl doesn\'t want congress breathing down their neck (since congress is now like that annoying kid in high school that thought he was cool but that everyone actually hated), and that is likely the reason bettman and the nhl is \"humoring\" them... but I just don\'t understand what congress hopes to gain (other than taxpayers money).

I hate our government. I\'m not too sure when it was that our citizens decided that having a strong government that doesn\'t serve the people\'s best interests and just steals the working mans money was a good thing. I mean, wasn\'t the united states founded because England\'s monarchy was doing the exact same thing?

It\'s just so aggrevating to me that the U.S. has the balls to try and police a SPORT that isn\'t mutually exclusive to the united states. What\'s next on the list for congress? Are they going to waiste our taxpayers money investigating doping in the olympic games? I mean come on.

Steroids and preformance enhancing drugs aren\'t even illegal in the U.S. What difference does it make if athletes use them or not? If the individual sports frown on it and test for it, great, but until they start dragging in joe blow weightlifter into the committee room and asking him questions about his steroid use, isn\'t this whole situation classified as \"discrimination?\" Why doesn\'t congress just start investigating whether or not people with handicaps really deserve wellfare? Why not assess whether or not asian americans should get to go to public school. I mean seriously. Are me and Repenttokyo the only two people that see a major problem with some very fundamental logic here?