German player banned after choosing girlfriend over drug test

Puck Daddy's personal hero of the day: Florian Busch, a German national hockey player for Polar Bears Berlin, who has received a two-year ban from the Court of Arbitration for Sport because he chose to "relax" with his girlfriend rather than take a doping test in March 2008.

The AP story includes German Coach Uwe Krupp's admission that Busch was sharing "a private moment" with his girlfriend when the anti-doping officials arrived unannounced. We haven't read this much between the lines since Guy Lafleur said his son had "a right to some intimacy" before driving him to a hotel to meet a 16-year-old lady-friend.

The World Anti-Doping Agency has actually been after Busch for over a year. The German Ice Hockey Federation initially chose not to ban him, and then stonewalled the Agency regarding an appeal until after the IIHF World Championships were completed. The WADA didn't feel the Germans' actions were -- to put it popular street parlance from the 1980s -- dope.

From the AP:

The 24-year-old Busch was originally fined $7,000 and ordered to do 56 hours of community work. The decision was appealed by the World Anti-Doping Agency, whose rules equate refusing a test to flunking one.

"I am very, very surprised that a young national team player who still has everything in front of him is being punished so drastically," said Erich Kuehnhackl, the vice president of the German Ice Hockey Federation. "This is unbelievable."

Huh. And here we thought having "everything in front of him" was the reason Busch refused the test in the first place ...

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