MIGHTY DUCKS NOTEBOOK : News of Louganis, Goldsworthy Raises Key Issues

You can’t avoid blood in hockey, whether it flows from a cut opened by a stick, a puck, a fist or, most gruesome, the razor-sharp edge of a skate blade.

“How many times have you seen a player doing an interview after the game with a trickle of blood going down his face?” said Pierre Gauthier, the Mighty Ducks’ assistant general manager. “You see hockey players with blood dripping all the time. It’s almost the image of a hockey player.”

It’s an image that can’t help but give NHL players pause in the wake of revelations that diver Greg Louganis has AIDS. Former NHL star Bill Goldsworthy, best known with the Minnesota North Stars in the 1960s and ‘70s, disclosed earlier this month that he has AIDS.

Chances of HIV being transmitted during sports competition are considered extremely remote by experts, but many Mighty Duck players say they would like to see mandatory HIV-testing in the NHL, despite legal and privacy issues.

“Any time you’re dealing with a sport where guys are cut and stitched frequently, sure, you’re going to worry,” said forward Garry Valk. “I think it should be mandatory that all players are checked. Guys have families. With HIV, it’s a very scary disease.

“Something like Louganis opens your eyes, or Magic Johnson. It seems like it gets worse and worse. Every year, you hear of more people in sports who have it. I’m sure if you look at the percentages, chances are there could be somebody infected right now and we wouldn’t know about it.”

All NHL teams are required to offer voluntary confidential HIV tests, and an eight-point NHL guideline says, “players should be advised it is his responsibility to know his own HIV status.” There are guidelines about treatment of bleeding players, but blood is frequently in sight as play continues.

“In our sport, you’ve got to wonder,” Coach Ron Wilson said. “It’s an invasion of privacy if you test, but on the other hand, even if the odds are a billion to one of contracting it, I’d like to know. God hope, anyway, that whoever tested positive in the NHL would come forward and we’d go from there.”

Bob Corkum, the team’s representative to the NHL Players Assn., said the issue has come up before.

“Nothing has been done, but with the awareness of the HIV virus, I think something has to be done and be done quickly,” he said. “I know you’d have to do it in confidence and with permission. There’d be some legal issues and you’d have to draw up guidelines.

“As far as contracting it on the ice, I guess it’s possible although I don’t think it’s likely,” he said. “Subconsciously, you might worry.”

Forward Tim Sweeney also thinks testing is a good idea.

“I think there should be. Why not? We’ve got to make the NHL a safer place for everybody,” he said. “On the other hand, if someone is positive, it wrecks their privacy.”

Off-the-ice risk is another issue, but one that is pervasive in society.

“Bill Goldsworthy was partying wildly at a time when people weren’t concerned about that,” Wilson said. “It’s a message that anyone can contract this disease.”

Valk agreed.

“I don’t think it has to do with promiscuity in sports. You can be a businessman and lead a promiscuous life style,” he said. “Guys are very aware of what the complications could be. It’s just a matter of time before it’s a hockey player.”

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Some players believe they are rarely at risk because their bodies are almost entirely covered by protective equipment, but they point to one particular exception: fights. The first thing a fighter does is drop his gloves, and a fighter’s bare hands often have cuts, old and new.

“A guy like Stu Grimson goes and fights and gets his knuckles cut up and a guy’s face is cut up,” Valk said. “There’s always blood around. It’s a scary thing.”

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Duck trainer Blynn DeNiro wears a glove on one hand and keeps the other free when he treats a bleeding player. He also travels with supplies that include germicidal foam, disposal containers for needles, scalpels and bloody gauze, and special bags for bloody towels.

“I think about what we did 10 or 15 years ago and I just cringe,” said DeNiro, a former Ram trainer. “Now I assume every drop of blood I touch is infected with both HIV and hepatitis.”

Hepatitis is a greater concern than HIV because it is more common and more easily transmitted, DeNiro said.

But despite increased awareness of the risks of contact with blood, DeNiro said precautions aren’t always taken. A case in point occurred when Duck defenseman Don McSween was severely cut on his wrist by a skate blade on Jan. 21 in Winnipeg.

“I go to the hospital here with McSween and say, ‘What do you want me to do with this bloody glove?’ and they say, ‘Just throw it in the trash over there,’ ” DeNiro said.

He is yet another proponent of testing athletes.

“The only reason we don’t test for HIV is that it’s a political issue. If it’s strictly a health issue, we’d test for it, like TB and hepatitis,” DeNiro said. “But because it has to do with sexual orientation and behaviors that are not quote-unquote permissible in our society, it’s a political issue. I understand why it’s not mandatory to test. The stigma has got to be taken away before it’s mandatory to test.”