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| Courtesy of CBC News |
by Bob Herpen
Phanatic Hockey Editor
According to former Phantoms and Flyers player and assistant coach Riley Cote, the moral arc of cannabis use among hockey players is long and it seems to favor justice.
In a relatively short span, perception of marijuana in hockey culture – against decades of intertwining with alcohol as the main method of stress relief, team bonding and celebration – has morphed from lessons more apt to be gleaned from the original “Reefer Madness” to a substance viewed as a viable option for pain relief and recovery.
“Even when I was coaching the Phantoms (from 2010-17 in Glens Falls and Allentown), we had suspended a few guys for cannabis use who got popped vaping after the game so it was still very, very taboo,” Cote revealed during a July 7 interview. “And if you got popped with it, it was like, ‘the Devil’s lettuce,’ you were looked at as a drug user and everything else.”
Oddly enough, that need for secrecy meant there was no peer pressure from teammates to quit the green and sink some golden brown.
“So I was always, up until I retired, absolutely quiet about it outside of the group of guys I could trust,” he continued. “Because that would essentially be career suicide.”
But the tables have turned. Once freed from the discretion required of employment with a multi-million-dollar enterprise that is a National Hockey League franchise, Cote went full force into not only talking about his brand of self-medication, but also promoting that million-dollar enterprise in the same spaces that once required stifling.
Just a few years after haltingly introducing the potential professional benefits of cannabis-related products in his final years as Phantoms assistant, Cote says he was openly hawking his interest in a company specializing in cannabidiol products directly in the Flyers locker room where he found interested parties among the strength and conditioning coaches.
Born in Winnipeg, Cote left home to pursue his dream when he was 16 years old. Shuffled off to northern Saskatchewan, his experiences with non-alcoholic substances were a couple tries with marijuana that left him confused and paranoid.
You can’t blame him. There’s no catchy rhyme to guide the young and inexperienced with cannabis as there is with booze (“Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear, etc.).
What followed was four years with Prince Albert in the Western Hockey League of Canadian juniors, 108 games and a Turner Cup championship during a brief tour in the second tier of professional hockey, 183 appearances in the AHL including a Calder Cup title in 2005, then 156 NHL contests exclusively for the Orange and Black between 2006 and 2010.
As he rose through the ranks, Cote’s relationship with cannabis grew and became more comfortable, all at a time when there was little guidance except the lessons learned through trial-and-error titration, along with adjusting location and mindset during consumption.
“I think I connected with it more on a level that most people would describe their relationship with cannabis, in lower doses, for managing anxiety because you feel the ‘softness,’” he said. “I found a little grove, again, without science to support it, any literature.”
His one shining moment in The Show came against the Montreal Canadiens, just prior to his 26th birthday – a goal in the dying seconds of a 5-3 home defeat on Feb. 17, 2008. That season also marked Cote’s high-water marks for games played in a single NHL campaign (70), along with the most points (4) and penalty minutes (202).
It may be surprising, though, that Cote says he really didn’t remember celebrating. And it’s something he says he definitely can’t blame on the Demon Weed, instead chalking it up to being a good teammate who just couldn’t cut loose after a loss.
“I didn’t even celebrate on the ice, so I know I didn’t go out and say, ‘Hey, look at me! I scored my first NHL goal!’ but I would almost put money on that,” Cote recalled. “It was at home, so I probably went out for some pops after. And that’s generally where it would go. It would be alcohol, right?”
It is well established that hockey culture centered around alcohol has existed for decades and with it, the residual disdain for other “hard” drugs. It is also now well established that enforcer culture, which revolves around players groomed or selected specifically to fight opponents, lends itself to anxiety and depression.
Aside from the catch-all panacea that beer offered, increasing use and subsequent abuse of opioids to combat pain became the order of the day. The honor of The Code might have been blown up for good with the deaths of former heavyweights Derek Boogaard and Wade Belak attributed in part to substance abuse as a result of mishandling the mental and physical toll fighting took on both players.
Cote felt it too, admitting the level of stress and performance anxiety, knowing he had a near-mandate to fight when necessary, was overwhelming and persistent. He said cannabis often blunted intrusive thoughts of hockey as a battleground.
“When Georges Laraque comes to Philly the first time, certainly my anxiety is through the roof,” he added. “I’ve gotta earn my keep and let everybody know I’ve got my street cred.”
One of the benefits of marijuana use after a particularly tough night, was an effect as immediate as words of reassurance.
Cote recalled one night as a Flyer, being tasked with fighting venerable veteran Donald Brashear. Following a particularly brutal bout and defeat, Cote said he smoked “more to soothe the mental pain and my wounded pride than to ease the physical pain” of getting rag-dolled by the Quebec-raised pugilist.
For a long time, Cote was part of a secret society, a de-centralized cadre of conspirators which existed at every level of the sport.
“No matter what league I played in there was always a handful of guys that used cannabis, whether they knew it was medicine or not, that’s a different story,” he said. “There was always a few regulars and you naturally find those guys.”
Now, the amount of legitimate medical information at the fingertips of players, coaches, agents and staff, alongside the evolution of strength, conditioning and recovery has altered opinions, and forced the matter into the open, Cote admitted.
If he were involved with management in pro hockey, it would be a ‘no brainer’ to allow athletes the opportunity to embrace any edge they can to compete better. All the better to keep the “meat suits” in top shape.
“It’s changed so much,” Cote acknowledged. “I know there’s not (many) current guys speaking about it but management’s very well aware of guys using cannabis now.
“I think unless you’re living in a hole in the ground somewhere, it’s safe to say that even the most old-school mind would tell you cannabis is safer than alcohol and a better recovery tool.”
For more on Cote's cannabis crusade, hit the link.
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