TORONTO - Former NHL player Rob Ramage has lost a bid for a new trial on impaired driving charges in a car crash that killed another ex-NHL player.
Ramage was convicted in 2007 of four charges including impaired driving causing death in the crash that killed his friend Keith Magnuson.
He was sentenced to four years in prison and a five-year driving ban, but has been out on bail and living in the United States.
But his lawyers argued his Charter rights were violated when he was required to give a urine sample while in hospital with a head injury and on morphine.
Ontario's Court of Appeal has dismissed Ramage's conviction and sentence appeals.
Its ruling says the trial judge did not err in concluding the urinalysis should be allowed under the Charter and that the charge to the jury was fair.
Magnuson, 56, was killed when a rental car driven by Ramage slammed head-on into another vehicle just north of Toronto in December 2003. The two men had just left a funeral reception for another former NHL player, Keith McCreary.
