Gone are the days when NHL clubs would just “wing it” on road trips.
Today, every aspect of the travel, training and meal schedule is mapped out, considered, to ensure these multimillion-dollar investments known as hockey players are as rested and prepared for games as they can be. And those exercise mavens, the team strength and conditioning coaches, aren’t just building and stretching player muscles, they’re also putting the boots to jet lag in their spare time.
When the Ottawa Senators broke down this week’s three-game road trip, part of a six-game journey that includes a couple of pit stops at home, their first measure against time-zone travel was to venture to Calgary a day early for Tuesday’s game against the Flames. Score one for head coach Paul MacLean and strength coach Chris Schwarz. A Sunday arrival, punctuated by some savvy sleep tips and a tough Monday workout, paid off nicely in a 3-1 victory over Calgary.
Following Tuesday’s game, the Senators flew to Edmonton to prepare for Thursday night’s match with the Oilers. According to Schwarz, everyone in the Senators contingent was snug in their beds by 1 a.m. Players caught up on some sleep Wednesday morning, then skated at 2 p.m. local time.
Nearly every aspect of the trip and planning represent a mix of scientific research and old-fashioned common sense. Some teams, including the Vancouver Canucks, have been known to consult a “fatigue science” program that analyses a team’s usual routines of eating, sleeping and practices, and spits out a travel itinerary to match.
The Senators use some of the science, including the research that shows athletes require eight to nine hours of nightly sleep to be at their best, and they factor in the players’ usual habits so the group has a say in the schedule.
The enemy has been identified — and it is the time-zone travel, the scourge of the body clock. The key, as most travellers will know, is to switch the body clock to the local time as quickly as possible. That’s why the Senators kept their players up a couple of extra hours on Sunday night, to help adjust to the two-hour difference of Mountain Time as early as the next day.
“We try to put science into it, but we don’t want to change them from their regular routines and preparation,” Schwarz says, in a telephone interview from the team’s Edmonton hotel.
Many pro teams subject players to questionnaires, trying to get feedback on how they felt during a long road trip — Tired? Irritable? Hungry? — so steps can be taken to improve conditions the next time around.
“One problem with all of this,” Schwarz says, “our guys are so superstitious, if you get overly analytical and tell them they didn’t sleep very well, that they scored poorly on some of the scales, now they’ll have in their mind they haven’t slept very well.
“Talk to other (coaches, trainers) around the league, they’ll say half the guys do well when you ‘high-science’ it, half don’t.”
Some of this guidance you learned from your mother, or, from experience, waking up in the middle of the night after time-zone travel, your throat so dry and sore it feels as though the airport shuttle bus rolled over your tongue.
To Alberta, the Senators carted small humidifiers to combat the dry prairie air. For young NHL players — and the Senators are loaded with them — what might seem common sense is not taken for granted by management and coaching staffs, trying to squeeze every last point out of a road trip schedule.
And so the Senators provide guidelines, tips, even a den mother for AHL Binghamton players, to ensure they’re eating well while learning how to survive the long grind of a pro hockey season.
The nutritional guide is Molly Morgan, and she can be seen strolling down the grocery aisles in Binghamton, New York, helping a prospect like goaltender Robin Lehner select his food and map out a meal plan so he eats properly.
Once players graduate to Ottawa, they’re in the hands of the club and a conditioning coach such as Schwarz, who accompanies players on many trips, but will also stay behind to help rehabilitate injured players, or make a side trip to Binghamton, as required.
On this current trip, which ends Sunday in Vancouver, Schwarz has injured players Matt Carkner and Peter Regin on hand to train and rehab. Some basic suggestions the Senators give their players:
• Hydrate. Close to bed time, have a shower and ensure the room is tidy, drapes drawn to maximize melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate sleep.
• Don’t watch a lot of TV, or play video games or use iPads. The blue light from these sources inhibit the body’s ability to produce melatonin.
• Pack some lousy sleep-inducing reading material. “We tell them to read a really boring book,” Schwarz says, “not something they’re really interested in.”
• Limit naps to 15 or 20 minutes so it doesn’t interfere with nighttime sleep.
Note there is no mention of visiting local drinking establishments to the wee hours. Illicit fun doesn’t crack a hockey team’s official travel to-do list.

Tags: Ottawa Senators