The NHL or the National Hockey League has never known any steroids or doping issues but will be laying off steroids testing now for the on-going play-offs. Fact is, the NHL will lay off doping test for more than five months. Experts think that this is a ridiculous policy in 2009. According to the Columbus Dispatch, the NHL doesn’t test for performance enhancing drugs during playoffs. And for the prices paid to raise the Stanley Cup, the fear of being caught doping is not among them. This NHL’s policy was enacted three years ago by the league and the player’s union; it does not permit testing for performance enhancing drugs during the playoffs and off season. This is actually a five-month window when the only enforcement against doping is the honor system.

According to doping experts, they do not endorse this kind of approach. Professor Charles Yesalis of the Penn State University, said any player would be an idiot to get caught with this system, an absolute moron, he strongly says. The professor specializes in the use and impact of performance-enhancing substances and for him, you have to go far beyond that testing system to have a true sense of whether players are not doping. The NHL policy is described by National doping experts as “woefully inadequate” and is too flawed to allow judgement on a percentage of players who might be using steroids, stimulants or any other banned substances.

New York official with the World Anti-Doping Agency and expert on drug use in sport Dr. Gary Wadler thinks that most people in professional sports wish the problem away. Some tweak their programs to take the heat off but there has never been any heat on hockey. With the current NHL policy, a team can get up to three no notice tests per season. Blue Jackets had the leagues’ maximum last season but was only given on test this season.

Does NHL have any doping problems? Ever since the drug policy came into effect, only the former NHL defenseman Sean Hill had tested positive for a banned substance in 2007. Compared to the National Football League, Olympics, Major League Baseball and other international sports event where cheaters are usually caught, Hockey’s doping records stands in contrast. Is the policy ineffective or is it that hockey players are really honest? Nash claimed that they are indeed clean, and that he himself has never thought of using banned substances and would support a year round testing program. He also said that he had been there for the last five or six years and he had never seen anything once.

An anonymous survey conducted by the Dispatch among the Jackets reveals that not a single player thought that the league has any doping problem. It was obvious that NHL players can use steroids to bulk up during the long off season then slip by during the less monitored playing season. Ken Hitchcock, Blue Jackets coach had noticed a change in the players’ body types in the mid-1990’s and it was not a subtle change. The coach had been with a minor league hockey then and remembered wondering at the physical transformations on ice. According to him, guys changed over the summer in a huge way – small guys becomes big guys.

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