Ice-breaking mad science offers Leafs cold comfort
Nobody was suggesting there aren’t still flaws in the system, holes to patch up, wrinkles to iron out.
But on Wednesday the Maple Leafs took the day off instead of taking to the ice. Even with Thursday’s home game against the Flyers beckoning, rest was seen as more valuable than additional reps. The perceived need for recovery trumped additional activity.
“You’re at that point in the season now where every day you wake up and you’re a little tired,” Matt Martin, the veteran forward, said the other day. “You’re just trying to find ways to feel better, find ways to get energy, find ways to finish strong.”
Finishing strong will require energy, for sure. The remainder of the Leafs’ schedule is a packed slog of 17 games in 32 days. The coming onslaught will be a test of the effectiveness of players whose future with the club resides on the fence. But it’ll also tell the franchise something about the merits and weaknesses of its recent investments in sports science.
For the past couple of seasons the Leafs have ploughed millions into the latest and greatest innovations in athlete optimization, acquiring various gizmos with the same verve with which GM Lou Lamoriello has been stockpiling fourthline glue guys.
Decisions on the need for rest days, for instance, may or may not be made with input from the Catapult GPS tracking system worn by players in practice. (The Raptors, who’ve been using the same system for a few years, have credited the data Catapult produces with making them one of the most injury-averse organizations in the NBA.)
And if the effects of fatigue persist, as they usually do during the season’s unceasing roll, the Leafs can claim no shortage of options to improve their chances at staying fresh. Massage therapists are always at the ready. Ditto practitioners of chiropractics and acupuncture and something called the active-release technique that involves the expert insertion of a practitioner’s thumbs into tender spots of the human anatomy —“It feels better (than it sounds),” said Frederik Andersen, the Maple Leafs netminder.
“There’s so many different things you can use. It’s amazing,” said James van Riemsdyk, the 27-yearold forward. “It’s great that the team is investing in that stuff.”
More recent additions to the fold are two dressing-room cryotherapy tanks wherein players are immersed from the neck down in a temporary freeze that dips around minus-110C. These should not be confused with the cryogenic facilities where wellheeled optimists preserve the bodies of loved ones, baseball great Ted Williams among them, although they sound nearly as grim.
“If you’re just sitting there in silence by yourself, the two minutes seems like two hours,” said van Riemsdyk of the cryotherapy experience, which is said to have inflammation-reducing, sleep-improving effects. “If you have some music on and you’re talking to someone, it’s usually not that bad. Distracting yourself is the key.”
Also available to the Maple Leafs are compression tights often worn on flights to reduce swelling and inflammation; electronic stimulation machines to speed healing to various bumps and bruises; cupboards full of nutritional supplements and vitamins and powders reputed to have recuperative powers.
Also: a hot tub, a cold tub, a steam room and a dry sauna — all of which, depending on which Leaf you ask, apparently have merits as wellness enhancers. Martin said his previous employer, the New York Islanders, required players to take a mandatory dip in a cold tub after each game, even if the efficacy of such immersion has been hotly debated in sports science circles. Players say the Maple Leafs don’t demand a chilly dip, but it appears to be encouraged. The club does not make members of its support staff available for interviews.
“It’s not fun,” said Connor Brown, speaking of his experiences soaking in 10C water. “They say there’s three stages. There’s shock at first. Then there’s a burning. And then it goes numb. It’s kind of like icing anything.” Except, it’s icing everything. “You’re freezing — but you feel better,” said Zach Hyman, the rookie winger.
Head coach Mike Babcock has dismissively referred to the organization’s army of research-journal-reading employees, headed by performance director Dr. Jeremy Bettle, as “the science project.”
The coach is not the only skeptic. There was a time in the NHL, not that long ago, when the only conceivable use for an ice bath was the prompt chilling of a case of beer. Post-game protocols often involved a dressing-room cigarette or three, or maybe a therapeutic trip to a downtown bar for late-night chicken wings and old-fashioned camaraderie. Asked about the myriad more sophisticated options in the Maple Leafs dressing room these days, veteran forward Leo Komarov shrugged.
“I’m not really a big fan. I think it’s more mental than anything,” said Komarov.
What’s Komarov’s preferred self-rejuvenation technique? “Sleeping,” he deadpanned. Said Nikita Zaitsev, the Russian defenceman: “I usually don’t use anything. I just go eat and go home.”
Zaitsev, who spent the last handful of seasons playing in hometown Moscow, also turned up his nose at the concept of cold-water bathing.
“Maybe it’s good for you, but I don’t like cold — especially for men. It’s, like, weird,” he said.
Zaitsev said he prefers a trip to the steam room or the sauna, although not the Finnish-style sauna in the Leafs room. He said he occasionally makes a special journey to one of Toronto’s Russian-style, wood-fired saunas alongside countryman and teammate Nikita Soshnikov: “Russian sauna is best.”
As with most sports-related matters, what’s actually “best” remains forever up for debate and often highly personal. While Zaitsev cast a frown at the popularity of the dressing-room hot tub, others offered an enthusiastic thumbs up.
“I use the hot tub a lot. I pretend like it helps me a lot, but I also just enjoy it. It’s mental recovery,” said Brown with a grin. “With the grind of this league, it’s really important to take advantage of all this stuff, but not everything works for everybody.”
What can’t be argued is that the Maple Leafs look like a team sparing little expense in pursuit of excellence, which hasn’t always been the case.
A toe in medicinal waters, hot or cold, certainly won’t guarantee an impending drink from the Stanley Cup. But in a league where nobody has championships down to a science, they’re doing no harm experimenting with the formula.
“They don’t skimp,” said Martin of the Maple Leafs. “It says they’re doing whatever they can to help us be our best — and in the end that’s all you can ask for.”