Rendez-vous CH #4: Pierre Allard

In episode 4 of Rendez-vous CH, Canadiens strength and conditioning coach, Pierre Allard, talks to host Marc Denis about his role in player training, return to play from injuries, and maintaining peak performance.

Marc Denis: I'm here today in the Montreal Canadiens' gym with strength and conditioning coach, Pierre Allard. Pierre, first and foremost, I've got to ask you about what fans want to know most: why do players hate that first day of training camp so much?
Pierre Allard: Well for them it's like a testing day. It's like going to school and it's your final exam. They see it a little bit that way. It's evolved a lot over the past years. What we're trying to do more now is a monitoring of the players to see things like their peak power and their cardio. We take data that we're going to use during the season and try to create a dashboard of a player. With that dashboard, we use it during the season to see if a light pops up or if something pops up that needs attention for certain aspects of the sport. Sometimes you'd think we're using players as guinea pigs to do experimentation, but we use the data more for return to play and for assessing things like fatigue during the season.
MD:Players nowadays use the offseason to get better and to improve at certain things. With such a busy schedule, travel, managing energy…what is the role of the strength and conditioning coach in season for training and workouts.
PA: It's a good challenge because there are many realities with players. First, you have players who play a lot of minutes, so it's more about managing fatigue with them. Players who play a little bit less, you try to push them a little but more so when the coach asks them to play a little bit more, they're physically ready for that. Then you have players who don't play games or who don't play that many minutes, so we have to push them further and do more with them in the gym. It's all related to the same thing: players need to be able to play for 16 or 18 minutes. I want them to be ready to do that.

MD: So, rarely in season would you see a big group intense workout?
PA: No, it's rare, because when you manage a big group it's more about time management because you have so many players around. I like to work with little groups so we can individualize the training with them.
MD: You've touched a little on the return to play aspect. Injuries in the NHL are a huge factor that can make a big difference between wins and losses. You are involved in the return to play. How important is your role in getting these players back?
PA:It's a team effort with Graham [Rynbend] and Vince [Roof-Racine] and with the medical team. We need to have very good communication together. First, when an injury happens, the three of us meet together with the player and we come up with a plan with him. And then the player goes for medical treatment and slowly comes back into the gym and gets in my hands. Then we start training for a return to play. We use data that we collect during the training camp to make sure they're ready to come back and practice with the team. My role is to make sure that when they jump on the ice with the team, they're at 100%.

MD:You get them ready to play, you've talked about how your job has evolved. I find since I retired, it's evolved more. I couldn't help but notice coming into the dressing room after practices, players wearing a sports shirt, I guess you could call it, and in the back, there's a little chip that they've been wearing. What exactly is that for and how does that help your work with them?
PA: The toughest thing in hockey is to calculate the player load. There isn't much research that we've seen that's been able to calculate that load. There's a lot of research done on rugby, football, and soccer, but not on hockey. Recently, the Catapult company came up with an algorithm that we can use to detect movement on the ice. What's tough to detect on the ice is, because it's a gliding sport, it's tough to detect movement in terms of what is considered a stride. Catapult got involved in the NHL and now we're able to see the player's load that they do during practices and during the exhibition games that we were allowed to track. Now we use that data for return to play, so we know exactly what type of load the player is doing during a hard practice and also during a game. We use that to make better decisions. It's not like one tool you use - it's to help make better decisions as a group. We also use the data when we track acute and chronic fatigue during the season.
MD: Offseason, in-season, testing, collecting data. Sport science is now involved in your job. What is the biggest challenge for Pierre Allard in the 2016-17 NHL?
PA: It's to take all that information and try to make sense of it. It's a long season - it's a marathon - and you want to make sure the players are ready to play every night. In order to do that, you have to be able to make good decisions based on data you collect. It's differentiating between "noise" and "signal". You try to take the signal to know if the player is tired or not. That's the biggest challenge.
MD: Pierre Allard, thank you so much.
PA:Thank you.