Kevin Stevens to speak to WPIAL players at summit on dangers of addiction

By: Doug Gulasy
Monday, September 24, 2018 | 1:30 PM

Former Pittsburgh Penguins player Kevin Stevens will be the featured speaker at a leadership summit for WPIAL athletes, coaches, athletic directors and principals that will include a panel presentation about the dangers of addiction.

The event, scheduled for 10 a.m.-noon Wednesday at the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh, was put together by the FBI’s Heroin Outreach Prevention and Education (HOPE) initiative and Familylinks.

According to recent studies, student-athletes are at a higher risk than non-athlete peers to experience a lifetime use of opioid prescriptions. Overdose deaths from opioid prescriptions have skyrocketed over the past two decades.

Each school invited can bring up to eight athletes, preferably four female and four male, along with the high school principal, athletic director and athletic trainer. WQED will film the event and potentially will air it statewide for PBS’ “Battling Opioids Week: A Project of PA Public Media.”

Stevens, a Penguins winger from 1987-95 and 2001-02 who also played for the Boston Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers, was prescribed painkillers after a 1993 injury. He battled addiction for more than two decades and was arrested in 2015, charged with conspiring to sell oxycodone, an opioid painkiller. He pleaded guilty in December 2016 and was sentenced in May 2017 to three years of probation and a $10,000 fine and was hired last September as a special assignment scout for the Penguins.

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Doug at dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter @dgulasy_Trib.

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review Staff Writer. You can contact Doug at 412-388-5830, dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter .