Sleep isn’t hard work.

And nobody applauds you for it.

You train well? People notice.

You score? People notice.

You make the team? People notice.

You get good marks at school? People notice.

You go to bed at 21:30, put your phone away and sleep for nine hours?

Nobody notices.

Except your body. And your brain.

And maybe, tomorrow, the quality of your training.

The quality of your recovery.

The sharpness of your decisions.

The way you feel when you step onto the ice.

Ask elite athletes and the people responsible for optimizing their performance, and sleep is central to their performance planning.

Alex Trinca, Director of Sport Performance at the Vancouver Canucks, puts it very simply:

“Sleep is ultimately a huge performance advantage for anybody that can figure out how to optimize it.”

The world's best athletes don't treat sleep as time away from training. They sleep because they're committed to it.

Sleep is part of ice hockey.

Why Sleep?

Ice hockey is one of the most demanding physical sports.

It’s lightning fast. Explosive. And unforgiving.

Speed, balance, coordination, stick handling, decision-making and the mental game all have to come together. And injuries are part of the experience. The body and brain are continually being asked to perform, adapt and recover.

“Sleep is extremely important to me — I need to rest and recover in order for the training I do to be absorbed by my body.”

Usain Bolt
8-time Olympic gold medallist — 100m & 200m world record holder

TO BE CONTINUED