It’s disturbing but not shocking. But it certainly is puzzling as to why it isn’t curtailed.
Steroid use in our Canadian universities is apparently out of control with one head coach saying college football is a “wild west” as players take steroids without fear of being caught.
The coach went on to say if every team in the CIS tested each player there would be one or two testing positive for certain and maybe as high as seven or eight per team in some cases.
The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports is the group responsible for testing, funded by the federal government.
It’s the suits in Ottawa who are demanding the testing for banned substances be done mostly on athletes which will be wearing the maple leaf in competition so the football and hockey players at the college level are not on the radar.
Here is a little banned substance math for you to contemplate.
CCES is planning on doing 200 tests this year which will look for but not focus on finding, steroids and human growth hormone. Urine tests will detect the steroid use but blood tests are needed to uncover HGH in an athlete.
The 200 number sounds good but put the 11,000 CIS athletes into the equation and the plan doesn’t add up.
After a drug scandal at the University of Waterloo a few years back there was a flurry of random testing going on with as many as eight athletes being tested during training camp, mid-season and during playoffs.
In the four years since, one coach says he has seen maybe one player tested after a playoff game so it appears the problem isn’t big enough for Ottawa to take it seriously.
Well, how about these numbers for them to swallow.
Over the past five years Canadian federal officials have seized $20.4 million in illegal steroids during more than 10,000 searches at various border crossings.
Last year alone more than $2.1 million worth of banned drugs was grabbed in 1,800 seizures which adds up to about five seizures per day.
Still think it’s not a problem?
I suppose if Ottawa was to levy a tax on this stuff and felt it was being ripped off in some manner, they would turn the heat up on this but sadly it’s not the case and things are cold in Canada all year round when it comes to banned drugs and testing.
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