Evolution Revolution: The changing science of hockey

This story appears in the January issue of Wild Magazine.
Minnesota Wild forward Charlie Coyle was heading into eighth grade when he started a routine that would change his hockey career forever. It was that summer that Coyle discovered the weight room, back at the school he attended in the Boston suburb of Weymouth, Massachusetts. What began then, under the tutelage of strength coach Pat O'Toole, continues today with Coyle as a 25-year-old NHLer.
"It's all about getting the edge," Coyle said. "That's what I keep in mind when I do it. That's what I think about in the summer time: You go home, get in the gym, get stronger, faster and quicker."

For Coyle, it was the basic lifts when he first began; squats, bench press and hang cleans -- the Olympic lifts -- that sustained him. But as he's gotten older, and the focus on hockey-specific training has become more refined, Coyle has found other exercises he enjoys.
"I haven't bar benched in years," Coyle said. "I just do dumb bells now when I do bench."
At 6-foot-3, 221 pounds, Coyle doesn't want to get too big. Sticking to just Olympic-style lifts tends to build muscle mass. For some, that's not a bad thing. But when you're already a big guy, and you play a sport like hockey where mobility is paramount, trying different things can be beneficial.
"A lot of stuff we do, you don't have to lots of weight," Coyle said. "It's all about moving the weight faster, more quicker and more explosively. That's what helps me."
Coyle said he used to be a guy who looked purely at the numbers on the bar, but learned after awhile that those numbers can only get you so far on the ice. Lifting heavy weight is an easy way to hurt yourself, whether it's straining a back or a muscle, trying to overexert yourself.
"You want to get those fast twitch muscles working," Coyle said. "The stuff we do, its about being more athletic and not being bulky. That's where it's going right now for athletes."
It wasn't always that way. Several decades ago, players used the couple weeks during training camp to get themselves in shape for the grueling regular season. This was back in the day when it wasn't uncommon for players or coaches to be smoking cigarettes on or near the bench.

"It's all about moving the weight faster, more quicker and more explosively. That's what helps me."

-- Charlie Coyle

Sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, as the money paid to athletes began to creep up, they started taking their offseason work more seriously.
Now, it's expected that players begin camp in the best shape of the season. Ask anyone who has participated in Wild coach Bruce Boudreau's
notorious conditioning test
on the first day of training camp.
But strength training is only one aspect of players' regiments. Diet is also a very important factor in a player's health and conditioning.
It's not just the fuel a player consumes, either; it's when that food is consumed.
In the summer, Coyle uses a meal plan to make his diet much easier. He usually begins his day with eggs, a protein shake and some fruit. After hitting the gym, Coyle eats lunch at the facility, where his trainer has ordered Paleolitic-specific meals for all athletes who train there.
A Paleolithic diet is generally high in protein and low in carbohydrates, which helps to build and maintain lean muscle.
"It's all good food and it's right there for us, so we get in and refuel," Coyle said.
Coyle utilizes the same company, Paleo Power Meals, for his dinners at home. He also has snacks available for when he gets hungry. But that's not to say Coyle doesn't occasionally splurge.
"I might save a day to do some sushi," he said with a smile. "But it's what I follow because it's easy and all of it is good for you."
The science behind the game has also taken a major step forward at the rink.
Once upon a time, it was sometimes difficult to tell whether a player was putting forth supreme effort or was out of shape. Now, staff has equipment that can tell it that right on a screen.
That's why you'll often see Wild strength coach Sean Skahan walking around practice with a laptop open.

"We have to optimize, in the little time that we have, to get the most quality, bang-for-your-buck kind of work in."

-- Sean Skahan, Wild strength and conditioning coach

On his screen are the heart rate numbers for every player on the ice, a technology that has advanced in recent years. Now, every player on the team wears a personalized heart monitor under his equipment, recording all kinds of data that Skahan can then use to help players train off the ice.
"It gives me a reading of their workload that they're doing during practice," Skahan said. "You can see on a daily practice basis what their recovery is, high heart rate to their resting heart rate, you can see it right there on the graph that shows me instantly."
Skahan has been a strength coach for almost 20 years, and in that time, the science behind his job has changed immensely. When Skahan first started, guys would walk around the weight room with a piece of paper and a pencil recording their numbers, which would be filed away.
Back then, he said, it was tougher to get players to buy into the concept of working out. Now, with hockey specific workouts made for both in-season and out-of-season, players have realized its become part of the deal of playing at the NHL level.
"We have to optimize, in the little time that we have, to get the most quality, bang-for-your-buck kind of work in," Skahan said.
In that regard, with all of the advancements in technology and science, Skahan said some of the old tried and true methods of training still work just fine. Among the upper-body work Skahan still uses are chin ups and pull ups.
"The basics are still the basics," Skahan said. "Keep it simple because you want to help them keep their strength that they've developed over the offseason and you want to try and delay that from slowing down during the year."
Where hockey has seen some of its greatest advancements, however, is in its equipment.
Gone are the days where a player simply shows up, is handed a few sticks, a pair of skates and his uniform.
In the old days, players were given wooden sticks that were very similar. The options for curve were limited, but players could heat the wood and make small adjustments. They could cut them down or add tape.
Now, in addition to the multitude of curve options, players are concerned about loft, kick points and flex.
John Kirk, a sales representative for Warrior hockey equipment, services about a dozen players in the Wild dressing room, outfitting them with everything from sticks to helmets, gloves and pads. Kirk is in charge of six other NHL teams as well, building relationships with players so they can get whatever they need as quickly as possible.

"We've gotten to a point now where we can do anything a player wants."

-- John Kirk, Warrior hockey equipment

It's Kirk's job to meet with each player who uses Warrior equipment, take his measurements, record them, take orders and send them on to the factory, where equipment, including sticks, is manufactured down to the millimeter.
All of this is usually done in a couple of weeks' time, but can take as few as two days in an emergency.
For things like flex, think of a golf club, with a regular shaft or a stiff shaft. Variations start at 75 and go up by five -- the higher the number, the stiffer the flex.
Kirk noted Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara, who is 6-foot-9 his uses a stick with a 120 or 125 flex, which is remarkably stiff. But height and weight aren't the only determining factors when it comes to flex; Kirk worked for Bauer when Pavel Bure played.
"He liked a 110, and he's about half the size of Chara," Kirk said. "To each their own."
On the opposite end, Brett Hull, who had one of the most lethal shots in NHL history, preferred a 65 or 70 flex.
"The torque on his stick was phenomenal," Kirk said. "But it worked for him, because he got so low to the ice when he was hitting one timers, that that's what he wanted."
For players, finding the happy medium between too stiff and too soft comes down to trial and error.
With skates, players now have their feet measured with the numbers sent on to the factory. There, skates are molded to their feet. Gone are the days of throwing a pair of skates in the oven and warming them up before quickly throwing them on to try and fit them to one's foot.
No matter what the equipment is, all of it is workable and most is made to order to the exact specifications of every player.
"In 30 years time, the game itself is the same. It's a lot faster, and guys are a lot bigger," Kirk said. "But on the equipment side of it, if you're not changing, you're falling behind. You either have to lead or least keep up."
Related:
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