USA Hockey's plan for replacements raises questions about anti-doping protocols

USA Hockey’s bid to replace the boycotting players on the women’s national team ahead of the IIHF Women’s World Championship is raising questions about anti-doping protocols.

The 23 players who have promised to skip the world championship over wage and support issues have been subject to U.S. Anti-Doping Agency testing for months and in many cases years, requiring them to be available to submit to a test anywhere at any time. The would-be replacement players only would be in the testing pool for a matter of days before the tournament, which is set to begin on Friday in Plymouth, Mich.

"Our expectation is that absolutely they should be subject to effective anti-doping programs prior to any competition — much less a World Championship,” USADA spokesman Ryan Madden told USA TODAY Sports via text message on Saturday. “Ultimately though, it's the International Federation's decision on its qualification criteria for entry. We would of course be well-prepared to have any and all potential team members in our testing pool."

USA Hockey and the IIHF, hockey’s international governing body, did not respond to USA TODAY Sports' questions regarding replacement players not being in USA Hockey’s testing pool ahead of the world championship.

“This has to be a concern for the USOC and for USA Hockey,” Cassie Campbell, who played on three Canadian Olympic women’s hockey teams, told USA TODAY Sports. “It likely won’t have to do with steroids, but some of these (potential replacement players) could test positive for cough medicine or some kind of over-the-counter medicine they took recently. How bad would it look if one of these players tests positive?”

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The lack of testing of U.S. women’s hockey players — if an agreement is not reached with the existing team —  would likely be raised by opposing teams, including Russia, which has been at the center of a doping scandal.

Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), called Russia’s ability to send two-thirds of its athletes to the 2016 Summer Olympics amid allegations the county ran a state-sponsored doping program “a mess” since few were tested thoroughly  before Rio.

Tygart also criticized the fact that 4,125 of the 11,470 total athletes at the Summer Games were not tested before the Olympics.

"How unacceptable is that?" Tygart said in a congressional hearing this year.

Hockey is generally not thought to be one of the sports with a major doping problem. According to USADA statistics, forward Shiann Darkangelo was the only player tested so far this year and 31 tests were carried out in 2016. In comparison, 210 U.S. swimmers were tested a total of 683 times in 2016.