It was only a matter of time until someone guessed that Alex Ovechkin's year-plus decline is due to steroid use. Of course, that doesn't make it any less irresponsible and infuriating, especially because almost all the evidence is circumstantial. But I guess that's where our world is today.
Anyway, the offending party is John Steigerwald of the Observer-Reporter. Here's what Steingerwald writes:
There are whispers and maybe even some out-loud conversations around the hockey world about Ovechkin's problem being a lack of artificial help.
In other words, performance-enhancing drugs.
He points to a couple random connections to different doctors (both of which were debunked by Ryan Lambert for Puck Daddy), then says that given these tepid connections, a player is guilty until proven innocent in his mind. Wait a minute, what was his name again. John Steigerwald? Where have I hear that name before?
Maybe someone can ask Snow, if he ever comes out of his coma, why he thought it was a good idea to wear Giants’ gear to a Dodgers’ home opener when there was a history of out-of-control drunkenness and arrests at that event going back several years. Remember when it was the kids who were wearing the team jerseys to games? It was a common sight to see an adult male coming through the turnstile dressed as a regular human being with a kid dressed in a "real" jersey holding his hand.
Cute.
Are the 42-year-olds who find it necessary to wear their replica jerseys to a road game, those kids who are now fathers who haven’t grown up?
Steigerwold is also the brother of the Pittsburgh Penguins' broadcaster. So yeah, let's just say I'm not taking his opinion seriously.