IOC Doctor Softens on Sudafed

Rene Fasel, president of the International Ice Hockey Federation, said he does not anticipate any drug-related problems involving hockey players, despite recent reports that many NHL players use Sudafed, a cold remedy that contains an ingredient on the International Olympic Committee’s list of banned substances.

Fasel also said he had spoken with Dr. Makoto Ueki, director of the IOC’s drug-testing laboratory, and that Ueki denied having said players in the Olympic hockey tournament would be caught using banned drugs. Ueki was widely quoted as having said that earlier this week.

“I was very disappointed about that statement,” Fasel said. “We spoke with the doctor and he said he never said that. For us, this discussion is over.

“We have, every year in the world championships, 50 to 60 NHL players. We make also tests there, and in past years we didn’t have any problem with NHL players, so I don’t know where these rumors are coming from.”

Aware that players whose NHL teams did not release them early to play in the preliminary round are unhappy with the format being used for the first time at Nagano, Fasel said the agreement among the NHL, the federation and the NHL Players Assn. that made the participation of NHL players possible was a compromise and, as such, is far from perfect.

“With such an agreement, there will always be people who will be unhappy,” Fasel said. “Honestly, we didn’t think about [having NHL players represent their homelands in 2002] in Salt Lake City. Our goal was to bring them here for the first time.”

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Video replay will be used in the Olympic hockey tournament, but only to determine whether the puck has crossed the goal line. It won’t be used to determine whether players are in the crease, as it is in NHL games.