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USA Hockey Magazine - Asleep At the Wheel?

By Bill Berg, 05/20/11, 2:33PM CDT

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Who is in charge, hockey people or marketing people?

 Much to my own surprise, this week I have no choice but to put the USA Hockey Magazine staff in the Penalty Box. And it has nothing to do with the debate on Peewees and body checking. Instead they are being escorted into the sin bin for blatant disregard for child safety. 

Bill Jr. sent me the link last week about a USA Hockey Magazine promotion:

USA Hockey Magazine: 52 Weeks of Winners!

Week 49 - PreSk8 Hockey Performance Drink

52 weeks, 52 winners. But get a load of this week's prize: 2 cases of PreSk8 Hockey Performance Drink from a company called Superior Hockey Nutrition. Then they go on to quote the company's PR material:

“As a hockey player you know how hard you work on the ice. You know that you have to give 110% during each and every shift. And you know how important it is to be able to skate faster, hit harder, stay calmer, think more clearly, handle the puck better and react more quickly than the other guy…and to do it all-out until the final whistle blows.

We know it too. That’s why we developed PreSk8!”

Energy Drinks and Young Hockey Players

"The risks are much greater than any benefit that can be derived from their use"

  I have already stated my feelings on these so-called “energy drinks” in a previous Penalty Pox article, the link is above.  And I am not going to rehash the health risks mentioned in that article. Instead I just want to add two more logs to that fire. The first is about the dangers of caffeine consumption by youngsters, which many people don't seem to be taking seriously. And the second point is more of a question. Why is USA Hockey encouraging our kids to use performance enhancing drugs? 

Superior Hockey Nutrition (SHN) claims that PreSk8 is “specifically designed to address the unique and extreme physical and mental demands faced by hockey players.” And SHN's mission is to distribute PreSk8 to rink pro shops and specialty hockey stores. The energy drink category is very competitive with hundreds of labels on the market. SHN is pretty late getting into the market, with no real chance to challenge the likes of Red Bull or Monster as a market leader. If you can't be number one in your category, you create a smaller category and try to be number one there. That is standard marketing practice, create a niche for your product, and own that niche. SHN has their sites fixed on hockey players.

Background material

Energy Drinks Harmful to Children

Authors conclude, “Energy drinks have no therapeutic benefit, and many ingredients are understudied and not regulated.”

Taste for Quick Boost Tied to Taste for Risk

Health researchers have identified a surprising new predictor for risky behavior among teenagers and young adults: the energy drink.

What's in PreSk8 and how does it work?

Superior Hockey Nutrition Website

PreSk8's list of ingredients is pretty much standard energy drink fare - rhodiola, caffeine, taurine, maltodextrin / fructose complex (sugars), and B-vitamin complex. Like many such drinks, they don't actually list the amounts of each ingredient. At least they don't list the amounts on their website; I have not actually found a can of the stuff anyplace yet.

On the FAQ page they do state that their product has more caffeine than your typical energy drink: “Most energy drinks simply don’t include enough to reach the performance enhancing threshold.” They indicate a standard energy drink as having a single "X", an energy shot has two X's, and PreSk8 has 3. Does this mean that PreSk8 has three times as much caffeine as a standard energy drink? We can't really be sure, but they clearly state that does contain more.

Caffeine, a stimulant drug, is the world's most commonly used psychoactive substance. While moderate caffeine use is “generally recognized as safe” by the US Food and Drug Administration and the American Medical Association, this classification is largely based on studies conducted in adults. Very little research has been conducted on children and adolescents. There is probably a good reason for that, where do you get your test subjects? I can picture the Food and Drug Administration trying to recruit test subjects:

“Good afternoon Mr. Smith, I'm from the FDA and we are conducting a test on the long term effects of caffeine on children. We think little Johnny would make an excellent candidate and we'd like your permission to jack him up with large doses of caffeine over the next six to eight years just to see if it causes any physical or psychological damage.”

Does that sound a little bit ridiculous? OK, then take out the FDA monitoring the experiment, and just do it yourself by pumping him full of “energy drinks” before every hockey practice and game. Or any time he stays up too late and feels a bit groggy in the morning. Why would you do that?

The FDA requires that over-the-counter caffeine-containing drugs, like NoDoz, carry a warning label stating that they are not recommended for children under 12 or pregnant women, nor are they safe to use while driving. Energy drinks are classified as nutritional supplements and require no such label. Yet they may contain more caffeine than the NoDoz tablet. In adults, high doses of caffeine lead to feelings of anxiety, nausea, jitteriness, and nervousness. In children I think you can assume a smaller dose would generate those types of reactions. One thing is certain, the more caffeine kids drink, the less they sleep.

Read: Check out the links on the right if you want to find out more about the effects of caffeine on children.

 That's the medical stuff, and as I've said before, “Dammit Jim, I'm a referee, not a doctor.” So now let's get to motive. Why are kids even drinking this stuff? Why are parents letting or even encouraging their kids to drink this stuff? The primary ingredient is the stimulant drug, caffeine. And these drinks claim to enhance your athletic performance. So these are, in essence, performance-enhancing drugs. PED's. Is there any other way to look at it?

When I hear “performance-enhancing drugs”, I think Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Mark McGwire. I conjure up images of Brian Bosworth, Tony Freaking Mandarich, and the late Lyle Alzedo. I think of the shame brought upon themselves by Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Rafael Palmero. I will always wonder if Lance Armstrong was really clean or just really clever. And I wonder where I put my Whizzinator.

I remember back before they were officially banned, when high school coaches were recommending that kids bulk up by using  Androstenedione (McGwire's supplement of choice). It wasn't technically a steroid, just a precursor, and it was legal for a while. If we are serious about our sport, we should be willing to do anything to get an edge, or make up for a perceived deficiency. Better sports through chemistry? If that's what it takes.

Is that where we are at in youth sports? Are we putting that much pressure on our kids to perform that they are willing to risk their own well-being to succeed? I can't blame the kids. Kids think they are invincible, they just don't know any better. It is the responsibility of parents and coaches to place limits. To borrow a phrase from an unrelated ad campaign, "Think before you drink."

Elisa Odabashian, a senior policy analyst with Consumers Union, said in a recent interview: "What are we coming to? What kind of society are we spawning here where everybody has to be artificially stimulated?"

Frank Uryasz, president of the National Center for Drug Free Sport and administrator of college drug testing programs, said young athletes should avoid caffeine and other stimulants.

 "I am concerned that they are gateway substances," Uryasz said in a telephone interview. "I think it develops a mind-set especially among young athletes that they have to take something - a powder, a pill, a liquid - to improve their performance, when actually study after study shows that almost all of these products add no value to a young person's athletic performance."

 Does that sound overly dramatic? I know that I have a built-in filter to the term "gateway drug." I always thought it was a cheap ploy to scare people away from something fairly benign because it could lead to worse things down the road. To quote Professor Harold Hill, "There's trouble right here in River City, with a capital T and that rhymes with P, and that stands for Pool."

 But seriously, if you let a Peewee or Bantam skater believe that he needs a special drink to enable him to perform at his best, what happens when that drink is no longer enough? What if the other kids are bigger, stronger, and faster? You've already given your approval to chemical enhancement. If energy drinks can't get the job done, there are other products available.

 There are no shortcuts. You want to improve your hockey performance? You won't find the answer in a can of PreSk8. Practice hard and often. Work on your coordination, stamina, and dexterity. Eat properly nutritious meals and snacks. Get eight or more hours of sleep at night.

 Somebody tell USA Hockey to get that crap out of their magazine. That magazine is primarily aimed at the youth skaters. Don't lead them down the performance-enhancement road.