One other thing of note: Boogaard's death happened on the first night of the second unsupervised recess he was granted while in the NHL Drug Rehabilitation program. The Ranger's had sent him there seeing he was in poor shape, the program decided to grant him the leaves and he died during the second leaves.
The NHL DOES NOT run this program, they are run by a licensed medical facility. Typically a "proper" drug/alcohol addiction program within a hospital or other medical facility. The NHL had done its part to get him help. They placed him in the facility. While in the care of help, he passed. To me, this is the NHL doing its due diligence to assist the player. You can't force someone to change, you can just keep offering help, which the NHL did. The failure either happened within the program at the facility letting him out when he was still very unwell or the player's unwillingness to internalize what the program was trying to help him with.
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