Report: NHL, NHLPA aiming for more cocaine testing

There appears to be a serious push in the works to combat cocaine use in the National Hockey League.

TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie broke the news via Twitter on Monday that, if all goes according to plan between the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association, all league drug testing “should include cocaine (testing) by the end of the season.”

The report comes just a little over a month after NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly revealed in an interview with TSN senior correspondent Rick Westhead that the use of cocaine and other "party drugs" in the league is a rising problem:

"The number of [cocaine] positives are more than they were in previous years and they're going up," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told TSN in an interview. "I wouldn't say it's a crisis in any sense. What I'd say is drugs like cocaine are cyclical and you've hit a cycle where it's an 'in' drug again. 

"I'd be shocked if we're talking about a couple dozen guys. I don't want to be naïve here … but if we're talking more than 20 guys I'd be shocked. Because we don't test in a comprehensive way, I can't say."

Lavoie's report states multiple times that there is no finalized plan put in place by the NHL and NHLPA. However, he said the expectation for players who test positive for cocaine is that there will "be no suspension, but help will be given with the substance abuse program of the NHL and PA," unless the problem goes "to Stage 2 of the joint substance program."

Even with the goal of having more testing in place by the end of the season, there is no word on when a definitive change to the current drug policy might be put in place.