A senior executive with the Toronto Maple Leafs met with Toronto Police Service officers to express concerns over Leafs players who were using or associating with those using cocaine, according to TSN's Rick Westhead.
Last season, a senior Maple Leafs team executive met with Toronto Police Service officers to address concerns that Leafs players were purportedly using cocaine or were associating with those who were, according to two people familiar with the matter.
A Maple Leafs spokesperson declined to comment.
Last week, we wrote about Leafs prospect Viktor Loov's comments to Swedish press. In it, Loov claimed that there was "a lot of cocaine" in the NHL.
Loov also said he believed the NHL wasn't doing enough to combat this issue.
They probably don't want to talk about it, it's doesn't belong to sports to do stuff like that. But I have the feeling the NHL doesn't take this seriously, they dont do much.
Days later, through Westhead, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly has said that the league will increase its testing for cocaine. Last year, only about a third of the 2,400 tests for performance enhancing drugs also went a step further to test for recreational drugs like cocaine, according to Westhead.
Here's what the report said about the state of the league's policy on the matter:
As matters in the NHL now stand, if "dangerously high" levels of cocaine are detected in a player's urine, the doctors who administer the league's drug program can "pierce the veil" of anonymity and directly contact a player to ask if they need help, Daly said.
This comes after former Los Angeles Kings forward Jarrett Stoll was charged with a felony for possession of cocaine. It was dismissed after he pled guilty to misdemeanours in the case, resulting in community service and a program to warn youths about the use of controlled substances. He has since singed a one-year deal with the New York Rangers.
Daly called the use of cocaine part of the "cyclical" nature of the drug, noting that it's "in" drug again, according to the report. Past and present NHL players such as Grant Fuhr, Rich Clune, Theo Fleury, Darren McCarty, Bob Probert, Todd Fedoruk, and John Kordic have all either spoken out, been arrested, or been reported to have used cocaine, among others.
Fedoruk, in an interview that accompanied Westhead's investigation, spoke about his past and the cocaine in the NHL.
We have a different lifestyle that enables us, makes these choices easier. We're protected. People will look out for us because of our status and because at heart we're pretty good guys. It enables the behaviour that can get out of control. A normal person wouldn't be able to get away with the stuff we do. I got away with stuff because I was a hockey player.
Fedoruk also spoke about the preferential treatment he and others have received, particularly in Philadelphia, where he says police have a history of helping out NHLers.