Hobey Baker winner gets 6-month ban for prohibited substance

MANKATO, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota State goaltender and Hobey Baker Award winner Dryden McKay has been given a six-month ban for an anti-doping violation after leading the Mavericks to the Frozen Four national championship game.

The suspension was announced Monday by the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

McKay was tested by the agency as an alternate for Team USA’s Olympic hockey roster. On Jan. 23, the 24-year-old tested positive for ostarine, which is a prohibited substance that’s in the class of anabolic agents.

Minnesota State said in a statement that McKay learned of the positive result on Jan. 31 and received a mandatory provisional suspension on Feb. 3. It was lifted by an arbitrator the same day following a hearing, the school said.

The school said it confirmed with the NCAA that McKay was eligible to play. His season ended April 9, when he and the Mavericks lost 5-1 to the University of Denver in the men’s Division I title game.

McKay said in a social media post that he had taken an vitamin D3 immune booster to help protect him from COVID-19, He said he had all of his supplements shipped to a lab after being notified of the positive test, and that the ostarine was in the D3 supplement.

USADA also said that a supplement he’d taken was contaminated with ostarine, according to results from a World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited lab. It was at a level consistent “with the circumstances of ingestion and his positive test,” the USADA said, and the facts label on the supplement label didn’t list ostarine.

“I am dealing with the consequence," so that he can start playing professionally in the fall. He also said he doesn’t take “muscle building supplements or creatine and never will” and that the “experience has been a very unexpected and difficult matter for me and my family.”

McKay finished the season with a 38-5 mark. He was named the Hobey Baker Award winner as the top player in NCAA men’s hockey.

Minnesota State said in its statement that despite the suspension, “we continue to believe Dryden McKay is an impressive young man, with unquestionable character and integrity who was unequivocally committed to the standards of fairness that come with competing drug free." The school also said that it would defer further comment since McKay is ”transitioning to another stage in his life."