Never been able to quite wrap my head around the supposed value of the hockey's traditional game-day morning skate. Sure, it's usually a 20-minute gig -- maybe a little longer -- but the morning skate, usually a series of drills conducted at a fairly brisk pace -- always struck me as an energy-suck (and a time-suck) on a day when it would seem to make sense to save energy for the thing that matters most, the game that night.
I get that guys like to wake up their legs a little, feel the puck and shoot it -- but pregame warm-ups seem to cover that same ground just fine.
More than anything, it seems like hockey teams have game-day morning skates because, well, that's what they've always done. If memory serves, the morning skate began back in the day as an idea intended to sweat out the beers from the night before, or possibly as a reason that might keep guys from having a few too many beverages the night before a game, knowing they have to skate in the morning. (Just FYI, the morning skate sometimes features also a video session, which takes up more time.)
Anyhow, UAA coach Matt Thomas during a tour of his team's renovated on-campus facilities on Tuesday said the Seawolves are bagging the morning skate. His reasoning is that the team travels a ton -- the Seawolves routinely travel across three and four times zones -- and he's opting for rest instead of the morning skate. Even at home, Thomas said, he's not sure he any longer sees the value of the morning skate.
Take a weekend home series, for example. Players don't leave the rink after the Friday night game until roughly 10:30. They've got to get some food in them, either at the rink or later, to replenish their bodies. They're still amped from the game, so it's not as if they are going to go home and immediately hit the rack. Say a player doesn't get to sleep until 1 a.m. and there's a 10 a.m. morning skate. There's no way said player can get up in the morning in time to have something to eat, get to the rink, get suited up for the morning skate, and still have been able to sock away eight hours sleep.
That's why Thomas said UAA's new routine for home games will be to meet at its on-campus facility for a 12:30 p.m. team meeting, then have a team lunch, then go over video. With that schedule, Thomas reasoned, even players who can't get to sleep until 2 a.m. can still get at least eight hours sleep and still have plenty of time to make the team meeting.
"I think sleep is more important that putting on your skates and warming up your hands,'' Thomas said.
And it's not like teams don't already occasionally bag the morning skate, particularly late in the season when players are fatigued and more likely to be nursing injuries. Sometimes, the morning skate late in the season will be optional. Some guys will skate. Some guys will just show up at the rink to get treatment or work on their sticks for the game that night.
Thomas reserved the right to reinstate the morning skate -- hockey players are creatures of habit, so he'll see how his players adjust to bagging the morning skate.
But the Seawolves will start the season by forgoing the morning skate in favor of a noon-ish team meeting and video session. That is intended to give players a better chance at being well-rested.
And it just occurred to me that dropping the morning skate has another benefit. UAA equipment manager Patrick Robertson will have less laundry to do.