Hey!! We take drugs too!!!

New York Islanders defenseman Sean Hill recently tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs making him the first player affected by the NHL's new drug policy. The NHL suspended Hill for 20 games, but the suspension wasn't immediate.

Before announcing the suspension, Hill was allowed to appeal the finding. Though nothing was overturned, the appeal postponed the start of his punishment, allowing him to play in the Isles qualifier for the Stanley Cup playoffs on the final day of the season. Hill played a key role in the defeat of the Maple Leafs, and for the first four games of his team's playoff series against Buffalo. The Leafs' loss eliminated from further post-season play.

This brings up the question: should that appeal have been heard before the playoffs began?

Bill Daly, League Deputy Commissioner, answered by saying,

"It's a concern. It's a balancing act. I would've been concerned if we had acted without Sean having had his right to be heard. That would have been unfair to the player to be out of competition if, in fact, he was able to sustain his appeal."

Hill's suspension will continue next year, forcing him to sit out 19 more games. That is, if a team picks him up. Hill becomes a free agent after this season and is forced to await his fate from the sideline.
This may be the first bust since the NHL's new policy was enacted, but no one is assuming steroid use isn't wide-spread in the NHL. Andrei Nazarov was reported claiming that 99 percent of NHL athletes were on steroids. Welcome to the drug race, hockey.

The "Fourth" Sport

The NHL can't get anything to go their way, can they? The league loses its entire 2004-05 season to a strike. Despite rules changes that make the game far more entertaining, they basically lose the entire 2005-06 season because most of America couldn't watch the games (owing to the league's truly STUPID decision to put themselves on the Outdoor Life Network, which promptly changed its name to Versus after last season). Now, in 2006-07, even more controversy reigns.

Slate.com's Daniel Engber penned a fascinating story the other day which highlights the ne'er-do-well atmosphere that seems to permeate the NHL's landscape. According to the article, the NHL's All-Star voting for this year's game turned into a complete debacle, when a grass-roots write-in campaign for little known Vancouver defenseman Rory Fitzpatrick turned into a war between self-proclaimed computer geeks trying to rig the system and the NHL offices, who risked the embarrassment of a nondescript player gaining a spot in one of the league's showcase events.

Meanwhile, the league's most marketable young star, forward Sidney Crosby, is stuck on a financially decrepit team that can't get an arena deal done and is in constant danger of moving to parts unknown --- whether it's Hamilton, Kansas City, or Sheboygan. While franchise instability is hardly limited to the NHL, no other league seems to be as distracted by the financial health of its franchises. Heck, the Colts were in real danger of moving to Los Angeles for the first part of this decade, yet the story was effectively kept on the back burner until Indianapolis announced a new stadium deal.

And, as ESPN.com's Damien Cox pointed out recently, the Penguins aren't the only team in sport purgatory. Cox's living autopsy on the Florida Panthers contained this sad (yet accurate) portrayal of the team:

This is, arguably, the NHL's weakest link, a team that was once very popular playing out of the bandbox Miami Arena when a hail of plastic rats meant the home team had scored but now lives in virtual seclusion somewhere near, but not too near, Fort Lauderdale.

Despite all the bad press, the biggest tragedy for the NHL in all of this is that very few people seem to care. That, more than franchise instability or All-Star voting problems, is the largest hurdle the NHL has to overcome.