A 26 year physiological description of a National Hockey League team

Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, August, 2008 by H.A. Quinney, Randy Dewart, Alex Game, Gary Snydmiller, Darren Warburton, Gordon Bell

Successful versus non-successful years

Unique to this investigation, we compared the physiological profile of an NHL team during seasons when the team was considered successful as assessed by the combination of points attained during the season, reaching the postseason playoffs, and winning the championship (Stanley Cup) versus less-competitive years. Also, using these criteria, the successful seasons were associated with a win percentage of greater than 52%. This was done in an attempt to assess the role of overall fitness (physiological profile) on success in the NHL. Few differences were observed between the seasons deemed as successful versus those that were not. Our data showed the players on the successful teams had lower body fat content and greater combined grip strength, but cardio-respiratory fitness and abdominal endurance were more improved on the non-successful teams.

It is important to note that in addition to a positive physiological profile, there is a myriad of other factors that contribute to a team's success, including the individual player attributes and skills that make up the team, leadership, coaching, injuries, league schedule, player development, management, and budget. It is also true that elite NHL players are highly skilled and physically conditioned and, as such, could be considered quite homogeneous in certain characteristics and there may be a "fine line" between what is considered a successful or unsuccessful season in any given year. Our analysis revealed that the many of the preseason physiological results of this professional ice-hockey team were not related to success of the team, or at least were not markedly different between non-successful years based on our pre-determined success criteria at the start of the season. It is important to point out that the fitness assessments were conducted during the pre-season and these fitness levels may change over the course of a hockey season that lasts several months of seasonal practices and games. Thus, it is likely that fitness does change over the course of a season and that fitness may still have a relationship to success in sport. Further research is required to investigate this relationship.

The other factor to consider is that the improvement in physical fitness was not unique to the team in the present study and at the same time other NHL teams were also engaging in physical training programs and player and team development. Other teams have shown similar changes in physical fitness to that observed in our cohort (Cox et al. 1995; Montgomery 1988). Furthermore, in our players, the level of fitness and physical stature continued to increase after the championship seasons had passed. Thus, our data would indicate that in highly trained players, success of the team is not solely related to physiological profile despite the fact that physical fitness of ice-hockey players must be considered influential in the attainment of success. However, the achievement of team success is clearly multivariate and includes many tangible and intangible factors.