Dryden McKay, Hobey Baker Award winner as NCAA top men's hockey player, banned six months for an anti-doping rule violation

Dryden McKay, the Minnesota State goaltender who won this year's Hobey Baker Award as the NCAA's top player, has accepted a six-month ban from competition for an anti-doping rule violation, according to the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

The period of ineligibility began on April 14, which was the date he accepted the sanction. McKay played his final NCAA game for the Mavericks on April 9, losing in the Frozen Four national championship game to Denver, 5-1.

«This experience has been a very unexpected and difficult matter for me and my family,» McKay said in a statement. «I am remaining optimistic and looking forward to beginning my pro career in the fall.»

McKay told ESPN that he was notified on Feb. 1 that a urine sample collected on Jan. 23 returned a positive test for Ostarine, a muscle growth drug that's not approved by the FDA and considered a banned substance by the USADA Protocol for Olympic and Paralympic Movement Testing, the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee National Anti-Doping Policy, and the International Ice Hockey Federation Anti-Doping Regulations.

The amount was trillionths of a gram, which McKay said provided no direct performance benefit.

The 24-year-old goalie was being drug tested after having been named an alternate player for the 2022 U.S. men's Olympic hockey team for the Beijing Games. McKay's services ended up not being needed.

McKay suspected that the Ostarine could have been sourced from one of the supplements he had been taking. He shipped them all to a lab for testing. He said Ostarine was found in an allegedly «all-natural» Vitamin D3 immune booster he had been taking for 10 days during the COVID-19 Omicron variant surge.

«During USADA's investigation into the circumstances of