Another Rough Day

If you didn't think the Rick Tocchet business was bad enough, a report in a New Jersey newspaper is now saying that police wiretaps intercepted phone calls between Tocchet and Wayne Gretzky, and seem to confirm that Gretzky knew about the gambling ring. This should come as no surprise, really - what were the chances that both his wife and one of his close friends would be involved in something of this magnitude, and he wouldn't have known about it? There is still nothing to suggest that Gretzky placed any bets, and it is downright foolish to think that he would have reported it to the authorities, given that his loved ones are involved. This still will not look good on Gretzky or on the NHL, however, and there's just no way around that.

If the unveiling of Bryan Berard's positive steroid test a few weeks ago surprised you, raise your eyebrows a little higher. According to a recent report, an unnamed Canadian player has now tested positive, but is currently appealing the results, and thus will remain unnamed for a little while longer. The only clue is that he was named to the Canadian Olympic team's 81-man long list, but did not make the final cut. This narrows it down to a possible 53 guys, with nearly twenty of those having represented Canada at a past Olympics or World Cup, and nearly all being past participants of a World Championship team, be it Men's or Junior. Here are the possibilities:

Goaltenders - Ed Belfour, Dan Cloutier, Curtis Joseph, Andrew Raycroft, Jose Theodore, Cam Ward.

Defencemen - Adrian Aucoin, Nick Boynton, Eric Brewer, Eric Desjardins, Scott Hannan, Barret Jackman, Kyle McLaren, Derek Morris, Dion Phaneuf, Chris Phillips, Sheldon Souray, Steve Staios, Brad Stuart.

Forwards - Jason Allison, Jason Arnott, Patrice Bergeron, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Daniel Briere, Jeff Carter, Marc Chouinard, Sidney Crosby, Shawn Horcoff, Paul Kariya, Mario Lemieux, Eric Lindros, Joffrey Lupul, John Madden, Kirk Maltby, Patrick Marleau, Brendan Morrison, Brenden Morrow, Glen Murray, Rob Niedermayer, Joe Nieuwendyk, Jeff O'Neill, Michael Peca, Keith Primeau, Mark Recchi, Michael Richards, Michael Ryder, Marc Savard, Brendan Shanahan, Steve Sullivan, Alex Tanguay, Scott Walker, Wes Walz, Steve Yzerman.

It is fairly safe to say that no matter which one of these players produced the offending test sample, Hockey Canada is feeling some pain right now. It seems like Dick Pound's warnings about steroids in hockey, though obviously exaggerated (a third of all players, he said, were on performance-enhancers), contain a few seeds of truth.

17:49 - The Montreal Canadiens have scheduled a press conference for this evening, presumably to discuss the positive test. Sources have told TSN that the test did not pick up an anabolic steroid, but a masking agent, one that is commonly found in hair-restoration drugs like Rogaine. If, as was previously reported, the player is one from the aforementioned 81-man list, but a non-participant in Torino, then the possibilities are Jose Theodore, Mike Ryder, or Sheldon Souray.

18:03 - Canadiens physician Dr. David Mulder has announced that Jose Theodore was the player who tested positive for the banned substance, which was Propecia, a drug used to grow hair. He has been taking it for eight to nine years, according to Dr. Mulder, and was unaware until recently that it was a banned substance. Read TSN's coverage here.