Thread: What We Learned: Squashing an Alex Ovechkin steroid accusation

What We Learned: Squashing an Alex Ovechkin steroid accusation
By Ryan Lambert/Mon Dec 05



A lot of time this season has been devoted to figuring out what, exactly, is keeping Alex Ovechkin from scoring by the truckload, as he used to in the halcyon days in which 50 goals was his annual expectation.

Have defenses figured him out? Was it a problem with the coach? Is he playing without his old edge?

No, says John Steigerwald, columnist for Washington, Pennsylvania, Observer-Reporter and brother of loathsome homer Pens broadcaster Paul. It's none of those things. The problem is that Ovie's off all the steroids he was taking!

Yes, really.

Steigerwald, clearly not content with having said the San Francisco Giants fan who was beaten into a coma earlier this year by opposing fans brought the attack on himself, published a column on Sunday that did not simply wonder whether Ovechkin's decline in production was the result of his ceasing to use performance-enhancing drugs, as the question mark in the headline implied. He outright said that without definitive proof that Ovechkin did not use performance-enhancing drugs, then clearly he must be presumed to have used them.

"I've taken the position that if you're performing at a near super-human level and your doctor is arrested for selling steroids, you are guilty until proven innocent," Steigerwald wrote.

That's how the law works, right?

Steigerwalds a fucking jackass if for nothing else his comment about the SF giants fan....
The most awesome goal.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzbmI6-YSnQ

So what was he using?

Rumors, on Steroids

I may not know much about hockey, but I do know this: Alex Ovechkin is about as close to a hometown sports hero as we have.

He's avoided Gilbert Arenas-like scandals and hasn't yet been taken to court for inappropriately touching a waitress. (Yes, standards are low these days.) He also hasn't told D.C. that he's not really into us, so that helps.

Of course, when someone accuses Ovechkin of using performance enhancing drugs, our ears perk up. That's exactly what John Steigerwald of the Pennsylvania-based Observer-Reporter claimed last Sunday when wondering aloud why Ovechkin wasn't his usual stellar self on the ice:

There are whispers and maybe even some out-loud conversations around the hockey world about Ovechkin's problem being a lack of artificial help.

In other words, performance-enhancing drugs.

The guy was superhuman when he first came into the league. He had the hardest shot anybody had seen in years. Goalies around the league talked about how it was different from everybody else's shot.

He's taking about half as many shots as he used to.

Is any of this proof that Ovechkin's performance was enhanced before, and now it's not? No. But, you combine it with the fact that his doctor was charged with bringing PEDs over the border from Canada, and it gives you the right to be suspicious.

Add to that the fact a Washington D.C. chiropractor was investigated after he bragged about supplying steroids to members of the Capitals and Washington Nationals.

After all the tearful, indignant denials by athletes who were later found to be juicers, I've taken the position that if you're performing at a near super-human level and your doctor is arrested for selling steroids, you are guilty until proven innocent.

Not guilty in a court of law, just in my mind. Sorry.

Interestingly enough, the same doctor who had Ovechkin as a patient also treated Tiger Woods.

Since I'm a fan of professional cycling, I know all too well how widespread the use of performance enhancing drugs can and has been. Heck, these days you don't even need a definitive test to assume that someone might have doped.

But this is a different case, and both Ryan Lambert at Puck Daddy and Deadspin argue that Steigerwald is just dead wrong. (You can listen to Lambert and Steigerwald go at it here.) They write that Ovechkin isn't linked to the doctor that he was claimed to be, and that a drop in performance isn't exactly conclusive evidence that his past strong performances were enhanced by drugs.

Mike Halford over at ProHockeyTalk may have said it best when he wrote: "I haven’t seen such reliance on hearsay and conjecture since Lionel Hutz sued the creator of Itchy & Scratchy."

By Martin Austermuhle in News on December 7, 2011 2:35 PM