Olympic doctors using coded messages so Russians don’t steal injury reports

Instead of using player names, Olympic hockey doctors are using code to discuss player injuries so the Russians don’t find out who’s hurt.

by Travis Hughes

Feb 14, 2014, 3:43 PM UTC

Martin Rose

Via the Philadelphia Inquirer:

There are 149 NHL players here. Each of their teams has a list of numbers that ... correspond to their players. Using numbers instead of names and specially issued cellphones wiped clear of all data, the two Philadelphia physicians representing the NHL in Sochi can communicate discreetly.
“The [NHL] owners were very concerned about that,” said Peter DeLuca, the Flyers’ orthopedic surgeon, who joins Flyers internist Gary Dorsheimer as the NHL’s Olympic medical representatives.
“They said any kind of personal account or anything with a password could be hacked by the Russians in a minute. So we left everything home, and they issued us these ‘clean phones.’ ”

NHL owners and management types have always been a little insane when it comes to revealing injury news, and that’s why we have players with “upper-body injuries” and “lower-body injuries” and not “broken hand” or “sprained ACL.” There’s good reason for this in some cases -- opposing players aren’t shy to poke a guy in an injured rib -- but in most cases it’s just crazy paranoia.

At the Winter Olympics, though, it might just be a good idea. Reports of hackers targeting visitors and stealing information at the Games have been largely debunked, but it’s pretty clear that the Russian government is in fact surveilling just about all communication in Sochi.

That information is probably being used for more important things like stopping terrorism, but hey, if the Russian government thinks that learning about, say, a Max Pacioretty hand injury before Russia plays the United States on Saturday could give their team a leg up, then it’s possible for them to do so.

So doctors are using code, and they have those so-called clean phones. Maybe it’ll help. Or maybe the Russians will just spy on their opponents in the bathroom and get the info they need anyway.