Caps' Nicklas Backstrom banned from gold medal match; Swedes lose to Canada

“It sucks. It’s like kindergarten, I can not ice the best team today. We should have the right conditions to compete with Canada and we didn’t have that today.” - Swedish Coach Par Marts

Kindergarten?  If Marts thinks that losing his best playmaker to testing positive for a banned substance from a medication that he has used for seven years with no incident is childish, wait until he has time to set back and think about the timing of the entire incident, and he may come up with a more adult metaphor.

Under a cloak of secrecy and fabricated tales of migraine headaches, Washington capitals' centerman Nicklas Backstrom was taken from the Swedish team's locker room by International Ice Hockey Federation officials prior to Sunday's gold medal match between Sweden and Canada and banned from playing in the match.

Backstrom was tested on Friday and according to reports from several media outlets,  he was on the Swedish team's lineup sheets just before the start of the match, then was scratched at the last possible moment, citing a debilitating migraine headache...

...but then during the course of the game, news leaked that the NHLPA had informed Yahoo Sports that Backstrom had actually been scratched from Sweden's lineup due to a positive test for pseudoephedrine, a banned substance by the IOC and the World Anti-Doping Federation and a common ingredient in allergy medications.

“I got the message two hours before the game, that there was something wrong. Then I knew when the warmups are starting that he wasn’t going to play," Marts said after the game that Canada easily won, 3-0.

Marts was naturally incensed and Backstrom distraught, obviously feeling that he needed to defend himself in some manner, as his tweet from Sochi bears out:

Nicklas Backstrom: "I have absolutely nothing to hide. I've had allergy problems for several years."
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) February 23, 2014

"We know it's because of an allergy medicine he has been using for seven years," Swedish team press officer Björn Folin told SportExpressen.ce, a Swedish news website - and if you think the news was taken as a shock around the NHL, wait until you see the front page of SportExpressen...

...obviously, this story is just starting, stand by for updates.

http://www.sportsinjuryalert.com/2014/02/caps-nicklas-backstrom-banned-from-gold.html#.UwoxsIUcq58