My father was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and spent three and a half years living in a refugee camp before a church sponsored his family to come by boat to Northern Canada.  He was twelve at the time, could not speak a word of English, and his family had nothing except the clothes on their backs, and a few minor items they traveled with.  At an early age, my father learned valuable lessons that would help shape his life, and many years later, the lives of his sons.  Earning things meant sacrifice; priorities and obligations overshadowed privileges and hard work, discipline, determination and desire were expected, not asked for.  Survival meant scratching, clawing, working, learning and listening in order to learn a new language, adjust to a new culture, and make an honest living.  These experiences molded my father into the man he was: a survivor, a hard worker, and a highly educated professional never forgetting what it took to reach places that, at many times, may have seemed unreachable. I am certain that these experiences have shaped my father’s life in ways that I may never fully understand, but I know deep in my heart he has used these life events to raise his sons into the men they have become today.

In my opinion, it’s extremely important to understand the tools of the trade for various sports and their requisite performance underpinnings.  In the world of hockey, perhaps no tool is as important as a player’s choice in both skates and sticks.  The hockey skate consists of a hard-outer shell, a rigid toe box to withstand the velocity of flying pucks/sticks, a padded tongue, which may, or may not be manipulated for increased range of motion, an Achilles guard, heel counter and skate blade.  Players traditionally choose a skate that provides the most comfort while ensuring performance needs.  The balance of this so called “performance teeter-totter” typically resides in a personal choice between rigidity and range of motion (frontal plane stiffness and sagittal plane mobility).  For example, defensemen may choose a stiffer boot due to the fact that backward skating (C-Cut) does not have a swing phase only a stance (foot is on the ice the whole time).  In addition the trunk segmental angle (relative to the horizontal axis) in forward skating is significantly less than backward skating which indicates that players lean their bodies significantly forward during forward skating and not nearly as much in skating backwards [1].  More can be found here.  This choice has direct impact on biomechanics, and foot contact within the skate [2]. 

When it comes to programming for ice hockey we must ask ourselves…what qualities matter most in sport competition?  In other words, what qualities can we train off the ice, that make the most tangible differences on the ice?  What abilities make great players great?   In order to answer these questions, a good place to start is to look at some of the existing literature and attempt to see what correlates best with on-ice performance. 

Reflecting on my hockey career, I always remembered the first few days of training camp.  Those were intense times.  I also recollect questioning my off-ice preparation during these times?  Why did my legs feel so heavy?  Did I not train hard enough?  Time and time again, I didn’t feel I had my “hockey legs” underneath me.  For someone who took so much pride in off-season preparation, why did I feel this way?  It took me many years to formulate a working hypothesis.  They say experience comes at the user’s expense, if only I knew then.

The adductors are a series of long muscles that originate in the pubis (pelvis) and insert into the femur (leg).  In the sport of ice hockey, their function is to eccentrically decelerate hip extension during push off, while concentrically contracting during swing.  In other words, as the player pushes off, the adductors are lengthened.  As the player recovers his/her foot, the muscles are shortened.  Adductor strains are amongst the most common form of soft tissue injury experienced during competitive ice hockey.  Adductor strains are prevalent and accounted for 10% of all injuries (10 of 95) in elite Swedish ice hockey players [1], while others have reported that 43% of injuries (20-47) resulted from adductor strains in elite Finnish ice hockey [2].  In a study from Tyler et al. [3]   researchers found that National Hockey League players with adductor to abductor strength ratios of less than 80% were seventeen times more likely to experience an adductor strain.  In order to understand these implications, one must dive deeper into the biomechanics of the sport.