There is no doubt professional ice hockey players are some of the toughest humans on the planet. Along with rugby, few players take the hits and abuse of hockey players. Hockey players take a lot of punishment and the pain is intense.
So, how do they combat the pain? They take plenty of anti-inflammatories and pain medication. Obviously that kind of pain combined with the dosages they are taken create an environment for abuse and addiction.
In his final three seasons playing in the National Hockey League, before dying last year at 28 of an accidental overdose of narcotic painkillers and alcohol, Derek Boogaard received more than 100 prescriptions for thousands of pills from more than a dozen team doctors for the Minnesota Wild and the Rangers. This according to the NYTimes.com
Overload of Medication
In a six-month stretch from October 2008 to April 2009, while playing 51 games, Boogaard received at least 25 prescriptions for the painkillers hydrocodone or oxycodone, a total of 622 pills, from 10 doctors — eight team doctors of the Wild, an oral surgeon in Minneapolis and a doctor for another N.H.L. team.
In the fall of 2010, an official for the Rangers, Boogaard’s new team, was notified of Boogaard’s recurring abuse of narcotic pain pills. Nonetheless, a Rangers team dentist soon wrote the first of five prescriptions for hydrocodone for Boogaard after he sustained an injury.
Then another Rangers doctor, although aware that Boogaard also had been addicted to sleeping pills in the past, wrote nearly 10 prescriptions for Ambien during Boogaard’s lone season with the team.
Getting the prescriptions could not have been easier. Often all he had to do was send a text message to a team doctor’s cellphone and without a notation made in team medical files.
This type of prescription abuse raises plenty of questions? Do team doctors communicate with one another about the care they are giving or the drugs they are prescribing? Do they demand to see a player before writing a new prescription? Are team medical records monitored and complete? How much information is shared among doctors, team officials and administrators of programs like the N.H.L.’s Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program?
This is not an isolated incident. It is happening every day. With the Los Angeles Kings victory in game 6 of the Stanley Cup the hockey season is over. Hopefully, the NHL will implement drug classes and work on making sure its players stay healthy on and off the ice.