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Turning Z's Into W's - Jan 4, 2016 - Vol. 69, Issue. 09  – Ronnie Shuker

THE SAN JOSE SHARKS WILL log more than 50,000 air miles this season, more than any other NHL team. That’s nothing new. They racked up more than 57,000 in 2013-14 and are always one of the league’s most frequent flyers.

Patrick Marleau is used to all this. Now in his 18th season with the Sharks, he has his body attuned to the rigors that come with playing out of San Jose. “I am one of the guys that can fall asleep on the plane pretty easily, but there is definitely a handful of guys that can’t sleep or have a tough time,” Marleau said. “It’s obviously not the most restful sleep when you’re on a plane, but if you can sleep, it helps.”

Despite all the advancements in training and nutrition in recent years, sleep habits haven’t received the same kind of attention. When it comes to rest, players are largely left to their own devices, figuratively and literally.

San Jose is one organization that has taken sleep seriously recently. Alongside his main duties as strength and conditioning coach, Mike Potenza teaches Sharks players about something called “sleep hygiene.” It includes everything from drinking herbal teas and taking natural supplements like zinc and magnesium, which promote deeper sleep, to stretching and breathing techniques and disconnecting from the digital world in preparation for bed. “Sleep is such a big thing, and it’s a huge area of concern for performance now more than ever,” Potenza said. “Teaching guys how to down-regulate themselves away from not only post-game intensity that goes along with that, but also devices and iPads and iPhones – all that stuff is actually going to rev your engine up, keep your brain up, and it takes a little bit more time to shut it down.”

In the world of pro hockey, sleep is starting to become a science. Science, however, usually takes a backseat to economics, at least when it comes to the schedule. In a perfect world, players would play all afternoon games so their bodies could stick to their natural internal clocks, but that’s never going to happen, aside from the occasional weekend matinee. Instead, when most people are winding down naturally after a hard day on the job, players have to get fired up artificially to go to work. It means they’re not getting back in bed until the early morning hours. And not all bedtimes are created equal.

SLEEP IS SUCH A BIG THING, AND IT’S A HUGE AREA OF CONCERN FOR PERFORMANCE NOW MORE THAN EVER – MIKE POTENZA

The San Jose Sharks will lead all NHL teams in air miles this season, according to ontheforecheck.com. The Florida Panthers are the only Eastern Time Zone team in the top 10

Sleeping from about 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. is far different from, say, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. When it’s dark outside and the temperature goes down, traditionally – if it weren’t for artificial lighting, televisions, computers, cellphones and other digital devices – people would be winding down as they get ready for sleep. For NHL players, however, they’re just getting going. Playing in the evening messes with the body’s natural 24-hour cycle. Add pre-game coffees and caffeinated energy drinks into the mix, and you can imagine how hard it is for players to shut down their systems to get some badly needed shuteye.

From The Archive: Tumultuous Time Period The Hockey News has released its archive to all THN subscribers: 76 years of history, stories, and features.

The unnatural sleep pattern players have to work around has always made it more difficult for road teams to win games – particularly in the Pacific Division, where the Sharks reside – which is one reason why home clubs have historically held a decided edge over visiting teams. But that’s slowly been changing over the past two decades (see sidebar). Home teams still have an edge, but advancements in the science of sleep have helped dull it steadily.

As San Jose, which held the NHL’s fourth-best road record through November, has figured out, a lack of sleep can carry over into the next game. To optimize rest for their players, the Sharks constantly tweak their travel times. That could mean staying overnight in a road city after a game and flying out the next day, which lets players get to bed earlier and sleep in a hotel instead of on the plane. The Sharks have also managed to cut some of their travel times by upgrading their sky ride. “Early in my career, our plane wasn’t big enough, so we had to stop halfway, land and fuel up, and it made the trip that much longer,” Marleau said. “Now we are able to make that trip from New York all the way back to San Jose.”

On top of all this, the Sharks have consulted Cheri Mah, a sleep medicine research scientist at the University of California, San Francisco. Sleep medicine itself is only about 60 years old, and there isn’t a ton of literature yet regarding the precise impact of sleep on athletes, but Mah said it’s been well documented that chronic sleep loss affects reaction times. She also points out that how players sleep is as crucial as how long they sleep. “Sleep duration and sleep quality are both important, and that’s the big critical part that players can actually work to control,” Mah said. “A lot of athletes don’t have the structure and strategies in place to assess and then improve their sleep. It’s an area again that’s relatively new compared to how much time they take to focus on their nutrition or their physical activity.”

You’d think the importance of sleep would be stating the obvious when it comes to performance, but Mah said few teams (across all pro leagues) have strategies in place for optimizing players’ z’s. It’s surprising, because a lot of it is within their control. At home and in hotel rooms, players can personalize their sleep environment (temperature, noise, comfort, light, etc.). They can reduce their caffeine intake, lower their alcohol consumption, take regular naps and set a well-defined routine for going to bed, all of which will make for better rest. Mah suggests sleep should be as structured as training and nutrition programs. Players should have specific plans to follow, and they should reassess them periodically to make adjustments. “It’s being talked about more now, and I think it has been proven that it is important to get that rest and it will help your performance as a team,” Marleau said. “I think that’s the direction a lot of the strength coaches are going after. Definitely Mike has been on top of it, going around making sure guys are getting their rest, talking to them and trying to help them out in anyway he can.”

GET OUT OF TOWN

Road teams have slowly but steadily been gaining ground on home clubs over the past 20 years. (For the sake of consistency across seasons, all overtime and shootout wins as well as overtime and shootout losses are considered ties.)

THE NHL’S FREQUENT FLYERS

The San Jose Sharks will lead all NHL teams in air miles this season, according to ontheforecheck.com. The Florida Panthers are the only Eastern Time Zone team in the top 10

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