Dead Hockey Enforcer's Family Sues NHL

The NHL has been hit with a wrongful-death lawsuit from the family of New York Rangers enforcer Derek Boogaard, who died two years ago this week from an accidental overdose of prescription painkillers and alcohol. After his death, the 28-year-old was found to have suffered brain damage from a disease caused by repeated blows to the head, and the lawsuit blames the league both for the brain injuries and Boogaard's addiction to painkillers.

The lawsuit says the NHL "breached its duty" to Boogaard by failing to suspend or discipline him after he failed drug tests, and by allowing and encouraging him to play—and fight—in the same game even after receiving concussions. "To distill this to one sentence you take a young man, you subject him to trauma, you give him pills for that trauma, he becomes addicted to those pills, you promise to treat him for that addiction, and you fail," a lawyer for the Boogaard family tells the New York Times. (More Derek Boogaard stories.)