Judge: Dead NY Rangers Player a Victim of Organized Sports

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge says a New York Rangers player who died in 2011 of an accidental overdose of prescription painkillers and a minor league hockey player who supplied him with pills are victims of organized sports.

Federal Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald commented Thursday as she spared Jordan Hart any prison time at sentencing on his guilty plea to a misdemeanor drug possession charge.

Prosecutors had accused the 33-year-old Hart of contributing to the addiction of Derek Boogaard before he died in Minneapolis. Boogaard also played for the Minnesota Wild.

The judge says Hart and Boogaard were victims of sports' failure to consider the consequences of supplying large quantities of painkillers to players. Hart was receiving prescription painkillers for a shoulder injury when he met Boogaard, who had hockey-related injuries of his own.