On today’s SHORT SHIFTS episode, Vechs wants to talk about what an ideal game day schedule looks like for a player to be at their best.
TEN MINUTES ON THE CLOCK STARTING NOW!
We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!
[Music] What's up everybody? Welcome to another Short Ships episode here. I'm Jeffrey J. Huavecchio. Everybody who I call for phone orders in for food always thinks I'm saying, "Yes." Kiley and I had a, I just said, "Jeff Lavecchio," because of my my tooth. I think I have a slight lift maybe. So I went to pick up a burger last night and they said, "Oh, for Jess." And I was like, "Yeah, that had to be me." Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I can't give anybody my first name when I do orders. I always heard my last name. I'll have to say it four times every single time. So I'm just like, I just say. Come back with. Like, it's Starbucks. If you go to Starbucks and it's told for, what do they hit you with? They don't give me back with anything. They're just like, "Huh?" What was that? Excuse me? So yeah, I, like, and honestly, I probably haven't said told for, on an order for anything in years. Yeah. Yeah. I started saying, Jeffrey, so that people don't confuse Jeff with Jess. Kiley said that I should start when I call places. I should be like, "My name is Jeff." Maybe they'll get it's Jeff, not Jess. Anyways, I digress. What a stupid way to open this show. But anyways, short shifts. Toph has no idea. Christopher has no idea what I'm going to ask. Scott, Scott has no idea. Scott, Scott, he doesn't know. Scott, he doesn't know. That be on the end, me. You know the rest, all right. No, man, every Sunday. Matt Damon. Matt Damon. Anyway. I met. Just keep going. He was so stupid. Toph has no idea back to the topic. We're a minute and a half in here. Toph, I want to talk about because I was on the phone with one of the junior teams that I am the strength coach for online here via training or look. What's up? Thank you. In the USHL, I was talking with their new head coach about daily routines and things like that. We were going over practice days, when to work out, when to skate, same thing, game days. What do those look like? What's an ideal day in my mind and his mind just trying to come up with some different schedules and scenarios. So you've been obviously a coach at one of the highest levels, NCAA Division 1. You played pro, you played college, played all these things. From a player's standpoint and a coach's standpoint and you can mix them together here, what is an ideal game day schedule look like in Tophur, Christopher, Ryan, Starbucks eyes? You know what? I know everybody's different. So, but what do you know? No, for sure. I mean, that's a part of it, but like it isn't too, because your team has to get stuff done. But I think, are you talking about for youth hockey? Are you talking about more for like higher level hockey? I'd probably say like, let's say you have a game at 7 p.m. So it's probably going to be midgets, you know, maybe bantums above. I don't know. Yeah, that's the thing. And one of the things that is really tricky, but also really important as you get higher and higher in levels, like you have to be prepared to alter your routine as a player, because not every game is going to be at 7 p.m. Right? So like, and as a coach, same thing. And that was something as the director of hockey ops at Michigan, like setting the schedule was crucial, making sure that we had the right routine schedule for the team. And you have sometimes you played at seven, sometimes you played at six, sometimes we played at four, sometimes we played at eight 30 based on the TV schedule with the big 10. So that was like a stressful part of my job, to be honest with you, to make sure that was dialed in. I always got, I always did the schedule with our trainer, trainer knows nutrition, trainer knows body like way more than I could. And the one thing that's tough is like every player is different. And what they want when their nap times are when, you know, like they want to eat and all that kind of stuff. So it's tricky. But in talking, I will defer a little bit here to some of the trainers that I've worked with. I think an ideal time to eat like your big meal is like two 30 for a seven o'clock game. Some teams eat it like 12, some teams eat it like one. You know, we tried to push it back a little bit. I think the team ate at one the year prior to me getting there and then strength or the trainer was kind of like, Peru was kind of like, we should we should move back. We should move back because that's the optimal time, you know, to for digestion and getting the most out of the things that you eat to be able to perform optimally during the game. So 230 ish was about that time. But the guys, they give us like a mutiny. No, we like our routines guys. We like our routines, right? So we kind of met in the middle a little bit. What do they want? It's at their creatures of habit, right? Just absolute creatures of habit. So for like the seniors, they've been eating at the same time, all three years. They've had a routine that works for them all three years. It's like, you're going to, you're going to change this on me now. Like, what are you, what are you kidding me? So yeah, another thing when it comes to routines is do you or don't you pre-game skate? Do you or don't you pre-game skate? I think a lot of like the science and literature out there says absolutely not do not pre-game skate. I don't think if I can remember correctly, you're not a big pre-game skate guy. I hate it. Yeah, yeah, there are some people that really enjoy it though. There's some people that really like it and that again, I think is a preference. So I don't love team pre-game skates. I used to because it got everybody together. You're in the locker room and I do think there's a merit to that. Don't get me wrong. However, I think just from a load management standpoint, mentally, physically, everybody's different in what they need and what they want. Like, I think pre-game skates are kind of a thing in the past for a lot of team. Could be achieved by just doing a team warm up together and then the guys who skate skate, the guys who don't don't. Yeah. Yeah. Like the togetherness aspect, you know? Yeah, totally. And you can get that in your team meetings and your meals and all that kind of stuff. I do think it's important that you get the guys out of bed, get them out of bed at some point, like don't let them sleep till 10, 11 o'clock. Like you got to get them out of bed and moving and eating right away to get their body going. So nine, I would say, maybe if it's a late game or you're getting in on a bus trip, you give them 9.30, 9.45. I'll defer again to the people who know better than me on that, like you. But it's funny, like it's good to have, I think the biggest thing is like it's good to have a routine as a team, but you have to be able to find new routines too, based on timing of your games. You know, even look at like the NCAA tournament. One games at four, one games at seven, which one are you going to get? You have to be prepared to be able to do both. And that was one thing that I was, I think, pretty good about the big 10 in the TV schedule is like our guys had to play at different times during the day. And so it kind of helped them to be able to understand how the routine is the routine, but the routine can also be altered based on a lot of different stuff too. I feel like I just rambled. Hopefully there was some stuff in there that was good and important to hear. No, that was great. And then how about you as a player? What was your game day routine like? Like quickly, you know? Yeah. Well, the one thing I didn't mention was like meetings. So you want to have your pregame meetings, your pre scout, your power player, penalty, killing stuff. Some, some teams like to do that at the rink. Some teams like to do that at the hotel. If you're an away team, some teams like to do that be like kind of right before ish the game. So it's in your head before you go out. Some teams like to do it kind of like in the morning to get it out of the way so they can think about it and visualize throughout the day. I think I'm a little bit more of a believer in that than I would be kind of doing it right before the game because I do believe in visualization. I think that is a real thing as do you as a player. For me, it wasn't anything really that special, really. Like I didn't have any big superstitions. I tried to do the same things every day. What we had a game, I love to visualize. I think I've said this before. Like I always, I had the same spot on the power play like all the time. My spot on the power play is front of the net to the goal line and feed guys, feed guys, feed guys. When I got the puck and so I would sit there before the game right in that spot in the corner, right behind where my spot was on the power play and just visualize and like accept the puck. Like physically, like with my hands, like get it, pass it up, get it, pass it across, get it, pass it to the bumper guy, get it, bring it to the net, you know, all the different scenarios. So that was one thing I always did. That was my kind of routine before every game was sitting in that spot for about five minutes and just going over situations in the game, particularly the power play that I was going to be put in. But nothing crazy in terms. I was never a guy that liked to get dressed early. Like I always kind of liked to get dressed mostly towards the end of when we had to get out for warmups. I don't know if you were like that. But anyway, I've talked way too much, dude. We have like a minute left. What do you think? No, dude. I mean, this is awesome. The question was for you. Well, I just think with the 45 seconds we have left, I would just say it's good to have multiple routines. I think it's best to always work backwards from the hockey side of things. It's the easiest way to do it. So if your team plays at seven often, then, you know, the hockey stuff, usually you're going to keep about the same most teams. You work backwards. Most teams at the higher levels will have a meeting two hours before. So five p.m. Most teams will start their warm up, you know, whatever. After that meeting, we're at five 30. And then you just work backwards. You have a snack time, you have a nap time, you have lunch, you have what you do in the morning, and you have breakfast. Were you a big napper? Either in 90 minutes or three hours, always, always, because I like sleeping in 90-minute increments. I'd wake up. I wouldn't feel groggy one cycle of REM. That's why I did it. I absolutely loved it. Time is up. We're going to share the show. But if you have questions on this, hit us up in the community and ask questions about routines and what you guys like. Share that show, baby. [BLANK_AUDIO]
On today’s SHORT SHIFTS episode, Vechs wants to talk about what an ideal game day schedule looks like for a player to be at their best.
TEN MINUTES ON THE CLOCK STARTING NOW!
We appreciate every listen, download, comment, rating and share on your social sites!
