On Wednesday the league denied a Sports Illustrated allegation that the league did very little to investigate a chiropractor who was said to have sold performance-enhancing drugs to the Capitals.

But the issue also points out a weakness of the NHL’s anti-doping stance because the league only tests in-season, and does no testing for performance enhancing drugs during the playoffs or in the off-season.

— Kevin McGran, Sports Reporter, Toronto Star, 21 April 2010

It’s bad form to talk about performance enhancing drugs in the NHL. Even after this story has broke the headline on the front page of TSN.ca is on the sidebar of headlines and not a major talking point. I’ve watched quite a bit of NHL coverage on TV tonight and there has been little talk about it. Had this been cycling the sport would be getting dragged through the dirt as I typed these very words. A good thing you might say – after all what sport needs the potential negative attention something like this might bring, but then we all seen what happened with Cycling and even Baseball to some respect when the teams, the governing bodies and even the media ignore the problem.

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I’m a few days late but I suppose since I was giving the Tour de France full coverage I might as well make mention to the fact that, in the end, the Tour did have a doping case. Thankfully it wasn’t the top end riders, but unfortunately it was a guy who won a stage, Mikel Astarloza. To save myself time I likely won’t get back if I was to waste time writing about this idiot, I’ll just leave it at a passing mention and move on. Most others have decided to ignore it and remember the race for the good points this year.

Manny Ramirez apologized today to his fans and his teammates but conveniently forgot to apologize to the sport and for taking steroids. But at least he apologized, while a sport that continues to think that a 50-GAME suspension for taking steroids is a deterrent, goes about its business with that feeble punishment still intact.

Ramirez is back on the field tonight, all is forgiven and he can continue to play. He only tested positive three months ago and is back hitting home runs, while other sports, such as cycling these coming three weeks, will be in the news because of its drug cheats who at least get a full two-year punishment for a first offence.

I love Baseball and I continue to go to Blue Jays games as often as I can, but I will always be a little bitter towards its efforts to beat the scandal of performance enhancing drugs while their punishment is so pathetic. I don’t know the in’s and out’s of Baseball politics but while sports like cycling and athletics have shown that a two-year ban doesn’t even deter athletes from cheating and hoping to get away with it then a meesly 50-game ban certainly wont.

Ramirez is back but he won’t be the last player to get caught, take a few months in the sun and come back again the same season!

You could plan your calendar around it … One month before the Tour de France gets underway and you just know it is going to happen … It has been happening for a number of years now — A doping scandal that gets the sport into the mainstream media followed by a number of top riders getting a suspension just in time for the start of the big race in July, to get the UCI looking like the good guys fighting the good fight in the eyes of the un-educated media. It is true that the UCI are fighting the good fight and more so than pretty much every other sport, but the publicity to be gained by releasing reports of positive drug tests at the crucial time is absolutely key.

So what is this all about? Well today Bernhard Kohl who came third in last years Tour only to be later disqualified for a positive drug test, put his head above the proverbial parapet with prefect timing to reveal that Blood Doping is rife within the sport. Reading what he had to say did not leave me asking, “How on earth can this still be happening”, but rather “How much was he paid for this exclusive?” With his career in tatters he has to make an income in some form or another and going by his photo a career as a male stripper isn’t likely to come along soon. I would put it down to all them steroids.

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Los Angeles Dodgers star Manny Ramirez has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and will be suspended 50 games by MLB. Please note the lack of shock and or surprise in my words. Ramirez hits home runs for fun and recently signed a huge contract with the Dodgers but has now been found out.

The biggest disgrace however is not that Ramirez has been caught, but that the league only suspend him 50 games. Are you kidding? If the league was in any way serious about cracking down on this it would be a minimum two year suspension like with Athletics, Cycling and other such drug riddled sports.

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Like a drug addict long overdue his next hit I was beginning to grow nervous of everything around me, becomingparanoid, unsure of what was going on and why the evil and very much writable side of sporting culture was letting me down? It had been so long and I was due a fix of athletes failing the good old drug test.

It is normally a monthly event in one sporting arena or another from Cycling to Baseball to Athletics, but it had already been a couple of months since Alex Rodriguez came ‘clean’ for what of a better word, and the Tour de France was still a good two months away.

Then came news yesterday that six Olympic athletes from last years games in Beijing had tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Normal order was restored and I could sleep knowing that all was right again with the sporting world and its evil under belly.

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Some people just don’t know when to fess up. They continue to dig and the hole just gets deeper and eventually it caves in on them. Alex Rodriguez has been the perfect example.

A-Rod had a great opportunity to come completely clean. He wouldn’t have been suspended or even if he had it would have only been for a few games thanks to Baseballs pathetic punishments for positive tests. He could have cleared his conscience and even won over some admirers for at least admitting to it. He could have promised to go clean from here on in, to implement his own independent yet public testing just to really prove it. This was his chance to save whatever was left of his crumbling reputation.

He didn’t take the opportunity. He instead tried to cover up what is probably the whole truth and it is coming back to bite him — big time.

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