from Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun,
Taking a magic pill — one not mentioned under NHL banned substances — is going to be dicussed at this week’s scouting combine in Buffalo where 30 teams are interviewing prospective draft picks.
It’s a hypothetical pill that the glory-seeking teens are asked to digest, if it ensured they’d win the Calder Trophy, Stanley Cup, make $5 million in endorsements, but — here’s the downer — they’d have a 50/50 chance of dying at age 30.
Paul Dennis, former team psychologist with the Leafs and Team Canada juniors, came up with the pill question a couple of years ago. It’s designed to circumvent any coaching by agents or advisors, who often urge players to give a stock answsers to all queries to placate inquisitors.
“With the Leafs, we had 300 to 400 potential draft picks,” Dennis told York Univerity Magazine, where he was a professor at the school after leaving the NHL team. “We went through every one with the scouts and had debates about it. The magic pill question was a part of that (process).
“In some ways there was a ‘correct’ or at least a better answer than saying ‘yes, I’ll take it’ and that would have been ‘I think I can accomplish the things you put in front of me without the use of a pill.”
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