DOPING PLAN GETS A COLD RECEPTION

Maple Leafs defenceman Dmitry Yushkevich hopes the National Hockey
League or the players union will head off a plan for random drug tests
on NHLers in the months leading up to the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Yushkevich, a potential member of the Russian team should the NHL
participate at Salt Lake City, was reacting to yesterday's
international anti-doping body recommendation in Montreal that
professional athletes undergo the same random drug testing as amateurs.

If the policy is adopted by the World Anti-Doping Agency, pros from
leagues such as the NHL and NBA, which allow many substances banned by
the International Olympic Committee, must submit to year-round testing.

"What we're trying to do here -- play 82 games and win the Stanley Cup
- -- is a lot different than what another athlete is doing," Yushkevich
said from the Leafs' Montreal hotel last night. "Two years ago when we
missed the playoffs and I was invited to the world championships, I
stopped taking Sudafed (a non-prescription cold medicine) because (an
ingredient in it) was banned.

"But now if they do the test ... we're right in the middle of the cold
season and a Sudafed might show up. The Olympics are two years away,
but I wouldn't be able to play."

The NHL does not screen players for banned substances, but the NBA
does check for use of marijuana, steroids, amphetamines, LSD, cocaine
and heroin. The proposed plan also would affect professional tennis
players.

"Pro athletes have a choice. If they want to participate in these
events, they will have to play by the same rules (as amateurs)," 1992
Olympic gold-medal-winning swimmer Mark Tewksbury said.

The recommendations, released as a two-day workshop closed, are to be
studied at an agency board meeting March 22 in Lausanne,
Switzerland.

The WADA's first resolution asked the International Olympic Committee
to "adopt an anti-doping policy requirement that relevant
international federations, national Olympic committees and
professional sports leagues must actively support ... as a
prerequisite for participating in the Olympic Games."

It also asked the IOC and international sports federations, as well as
event organizers, to agree to submit athletes to "unannounced,
out-of-competition testing" as a condition to competing in major events.

It further recommended that the pro sports leagues themselves
participate in the agency's programs, which are to include random drug
testing as well as education and research programs and efforts to stem
trafficking in banned substances.

The NHL said that the declaration needed to be studied before the
league could comment. The NHL players association could not be reached
for comment.