Forget about NHL and PA, Lehner should be talking to FBI and DEA
The goalie's recent tweets about how players are dealt with by NHL training staffs contained some very serious accusations that need to be addressed by authorities
With less than a week to go before the NHL starts playing meaningful games, the league is in the news for some rather dubious reasons. Between the constantly revolving news cycles involving Evander Kane and the explosive proclamations made by Robin Lehner, the best league in the world finds itself embroiled in a cauldron of off-ice controversy.
(One guy you have to feel for in all of this is Craig Oster, one of the truly good people in the hockey industry. He represents both Kane and Lehner, and right about now his penny loafers are likely smoldering from all the fires he’s had to stamp out. Oh yes, and he’s also the agent for Brady Tkachuk. So godspeed, Craig Oster.)
You’re probably aware by now of the veiled accusations Lehner has made against unnamed NHL teams on social media in the past couple of days. It all started with him being critical of the Buffalo Sabres and how they’ve handled the Jack Eichel situation and has evolved into something much, much more serious. In effect, Lehner has effectively accused NHL teams, club doctors and trainers of a criminal conspiracy to illegally distribute opioids to NHL players.
Lehner has since said that he had a very good meeting with the NHL and NHL Players’ Association and he feels good about the approach both the league and the union are taking to address his concerns. That’s all well and good, but Lehner’s next meetings should be with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Because if Lehner wants to affect change the way he says he does, there’s very little reason to believe it will be done through a league that has historically demonstrated almost no regard for the long-term physical and mental health of its players. There is no reason to believe that anything substantial will ever come of it if Lehner keeps his concerns in-house. The NHL and those who hold the levers of power have a long and well-documented history of protecting their own.
To be clear, these are potential crimes Lehner is exposing. Very serious crimes that merit a thorough investigation. “It’s a conspiracy to traffic in narcotics,” said Andrew Furgiuele, a criminal lawyer and adjunct professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. “It’s absolutely the sort of thing I would expect the authorities should at least have on their radar, given what his tweet was. They certainly have enough grounds to start asking if people will talk to them.”
Hockey Unfiltered has reached out to both the FBI and DEA to ask whether Lehner’s tweets would be grounds for an investigation and has yet to hear back from them. We also reached out to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who said that any investigation would have to originate with the police forces who have jurisdiction in each of the seven cities that have NHL teams.
“There is no duty on the part of authorities to undertake an investigation,” Furgiuele said. “There are times when individuals are duty-bound to do certain things or cooperate at certain times. There’s nothing that forces the hand of authorities into investigation and dictating how they investigate. The other thing is they have no duty to announce they’ve started an investigation. The silence isn’t necessarily indicative of nothing.”
Lehner has said that after his very public tweets, his conversations with the NHL and NHLPA on this matter will be private going forward. And he’s entitled to that. But he also made it very clear that he has very real evidence of wrongdoing in his own experience and the experience of friends and former teammates. And the fact that his colleagues and former players have been so supportive of him speaking out lends credence to the idea that there is something there to investigate.
This might be one of those rare instances where hockey’s low profile in the United States might work in its favor. That certainly isn’t the case with the National Football League and the Washington Football Club, whose practice facility was searched by federal authorities in the past week. The head athletic trainer of the team has been put on administrative leave for an ongoing criminal investigation unrelated to the team. But the NFL Players Association was so concerned about it that it sent a formal request to the league for information about the search, which included agents from the DEA.
There is no doubt Lehner cares deeply about this issue. And with that being the case, he needn’t wait for either the FBI or DEA to come to him. If he’s this passionate about effecting change, Lehner could go to those two bodies himself with whatever evidence he has. He has wisely chosen to keep his talks with the league and NHLPA private, but there should be no such shackles with law enforcement. If Lehner can supply them with teams and the names of individuals who have allegedly broken the law, he can see this through and carry it over the goal line by doing just that.
Because going to the NHL and NHLPA is almost certainly going to accomplish nothing.