Capitals players and coaches continued Wednesday to distance themselves from the arrest of a Reston doctor on steroid distribution charges.
Sheriff’s deputies and a United States marshal arrested Douglas O. Nagel, 50, at his home on Tuesday morning. The Caps have sent players to Nagel, a chiropractor who claims an affiliation with the team. The National Hockey League club disputed any official ties with Nagel in a statement on Tuesday — though conceded that its training staff had sent players to him for treatment in the past.
Players who have gone to Nagel include forwards Matt Bradley and Eric Fehr and defenseman Shaone Morrisonn. Caps owner Ted Leonsis lamented on his personal blog on Wednesday that players’ names were leaked to the media after they met with investigators on Tuesday at the team’s headquarters in Arlington.
“As soon as officers asked their questions, they quickly realized there was no other connection other than general chiropractic services,” Leonsis wrote. “Our players and our organization have been open, honest and transparent.”
The Polk County detectives also met with the team’s head trainer, Greg Smith, and with Caps coach Bruce Boudreau. Nagel has offices in Sterling and at the Ballston Common Mall, where the Caps practice rink resides on top of the parking garage. But Nagel has never been listed in the Caps’ annual media guide as a team doctor or staff member. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in an interview with The Examiner on Tuesday that law enforcement officials had no evidence showing Nagel sold steroids to any professional athlete.
“I think they should know there shouldn’t be anything to block out,” Boudreau said at his team’s morning skate on Wednesday a few hours prior to a game with the Pittsburgh Penguins at Verizon Center. “We’re not hiding anything. … It should be done. I have no qualms. We all told them the truth.”
NHL players are randomly tested for illegal drugs up to three times during the regular season by an independent agency, which sends the samples to the World Anti-Doping Agency for testing. All Caps players who were eligible and were likely to participate as part of their country’s Olympic teams in last month’s Winter Olympics in Vancouver — including stars Alex Ovechkin, Alex Semin and Nicklas Backstrom — also underwent separate drug testing for that event.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed in a statement Wednesday that his league’s investigation also showed that no Caps player received — or was offered — performance-enhancing drugs by Nagel.
“I just told [investigators] that I didn’t know anything,” Boudreau told reporters. “I didn’t even know the doctor was in our complex until [Tuesday]. And I’ve never, obviously, used him as a chiropractor. So it was all news to me. It’s a wide net … and they were doing a thorough job, asking everybody that could be involved and getting some answers.”
