Thankfully, next month's Congressional hearings following up on the Mitchell Report aren't going to be a circus, as ballplayers are not going to be asked to appear:"We don't want to turn this into a circus," Rep. Tom Davis told USA Today. "We just want to know what Major League Baseball plans to do about their problems. We understand the collective bargaining agreement complicates matters, but we'd like to see if they agree with Senator George Mitchell's recommendations, and move on."
Good for Congress. It would be better if they kept out of it completely, but let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Not that there still isn't some opportunistic grandstanding going on here:
While the NHL has not been officially invited to take part in the hearings, NHL sources in Washington have told the league they can expect to be included. The NHL took part in hearings both during and after the lockout. The fact politicians aren't rushing to ensure that the NHL is front and center in this latest round of discussions suggests they believe the NHL's drug testing policy is either adequate or the league doesn't have a significant problem with performance enhancing substances or both.
What about option C: that even if the testing sucks and the league does have a significant problem with performance enhancing substances, no congressman has ever gained votes by pandering to hockey fans they way they think they can by pandering to baseball fans.
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