Hockey Lac St-Louis says coaches distributed smelling salts to children

A disciplinary committee has suspended two minor league hockey coaches after it was made aware of situations involving young children and smelling salts.

Hockey Lac St-Louis says coaches in the region encouraged and even distributing ammonia salts to their players.

A memo was sent to its members last week.

Quebec Sports Minister Isabelle Charest says it’s not acceptable.

“They don’t need the supplements,” she said. “They don’t need that kind of stuff. They just need to have fun.”

In an email to CTV News, Hockey Lac St-Louis said its disciplinary committee has suspended the coaches from the Hudson-Rigaud-St-Lazare Minor Hockey Association.

A head coach has been suspended for four games, and an assistant was suspended for the rest of the season.

While some of the NHL’s best players use smelling salts, Dr. Luc De Garie said they are useless in terms of performance.

“The only thing they do is they give you a sense of arousal or awakeness, but that lasts a very short period of time,” he said.

De Garie said that they have the same effect as splashing a cold glass of water on your face or neck; only water is not harmful to your body.

“It can actually create a major spasm in terms of the respiratory system,” said De Garie. “The other thing too is if you get too close to it, you can actually burn your nasal mucosa.”

Hockey Quebec has now banned smelling salts for the rest of the season.

General manager Stephane Auger said the organization is working to create clear rules.

“We’re going to work with our partners to make sure that we come up with something strong based on science and to make sure that our volunteers on the ground have all the tools to prevent that,” said Auger.

Before this, he said it was a topic of discussion with Hockey Canada.

“It’s a problem,” he added. “I’ve seen pictures where there is vending machine selling those type of products in arenas.”

Both Hockey Quebec and Hockey Lac St-Louis say they want the rink to be a healthy and safe environment for kids that is free from substances that could have harmful consequences.