Steroids in Sports

With word breaking yesterday that Boston Roid Sox, I mean Red Sox, players Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz tested positive for steroids back in 2003, it makes you realize how tainted that sport has become over the past decade (and then some).

The first question that you must be asking is “how come we’re just getting the 2003 results now?” Well, there were 120 some of them that tested positive that year, so with the probable increase every year after that, the people doing the testing are just way too busy to get the results out in a timely matter. Yeah, the situation is probably THAT BAD in MLB.

How about Tiger Woods? Conspiracy theorists said that his “knee injury” last year was just a way for him to get the hell out of the sport for a little while before they started testing for steroids. Now that he has had time to get his body back into a mere-mortal state, look at him. He didn’t make the cut last major, and is looking to miss it again this weekend. No, it’s not that knee.

So what does this have to do with hockey?

Over the last little while there has been speculation in the media about players being supplied with performance enhancing drugs, and even that guy sitting beside you at your favorite sports bar babbling on about “he can’t be that good without roids!”

Hockey has been long time believed to be the sport that would probably least benefit from steroids, unlike baseball and football, but maybe the tide has turned and the boys are starting to juice a little?

Yes the players are bigger, and the game is faster than ever, but does that really mean that the players are cheating? I’m sure there are at least a handful of them, but for the most part I’d say that the NHL is untainted by steroids and will probably stay that way for a while.

What do you think? Think that the juice has its claws (needles) into the NHL? If you were to throw around some guesses, who do you think is most likely to be on roids? And for entertainment value, least likely?

I’ll start!

Most likely on roids: Chris Chelios (late in his career – how do you play that long?)

Least likely on roids: Daniel Briere (Peter Pan on roids? Come on!)