The National Lacrosse League still holds out hope that things will return to normal in time to hold playoffs.
Which makes Dan Noble, Halifax Thunderbirds strength and conditioning coach, even more important to the team.
Noble says Thunderbirds players call their practices track meets, in accordance with the fitness demands of the coaching staff, so everyone is responsible to look after themselves.
“The majority of these guys will train every day, one to two hours a day,” said Noble. “A guy like Graeme Hossack, he’s like a robot, two hours a day at 5 a.m. and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat processed or fast food. He treats his body like a temple and that pays off for him on the floor.”
Noble said lacrosse has evolved over the last decade or so, but it’s become more common for players to, for example, eat like pro athletes and look after their body in various ways.
“It depends on the guy. Strength is always the foundation, you need a certain level of strength to play this game. It is a man’s game and you get hit, you get hit hard, so if you’re 130 pounds it’s going to be a really difficult game for you to play,” Noble said. “Box lacrosse was a very blue-collar sport, it was gritty with guys from small towns who were tough as nails, they would drink as many beers as they’d score goals. But the game has grown so fast and you’re getting a lot of Canadian kids going down to play field lacrosse in the U.S. on scholarships. It’s through that process that everything’s been elevated.”
Because the NLL’s model has players living in their home towns and coming together for games, Noble thinks the league can quickly bounce back from this extended stoppage.
“I think it’s different from, say, the NHL because the NHL is so used to being together. Whereas our guys, the biggest thing we’re missing right now is our weekly practices,” he said. “Everyone is scattered all over Canada, we don’t get to see them, so we use an online training platform that the guys have access to.
“I send videos on how to turn bedsheets into exercise equipment, how to do plyometrics at home, everything under the sun.”
Justin Barron hasn’t had to tear up any of his mother’s bedsheets yet, but the Halifax Mooseheads defenceman and his brother did buy some exercise equipment online.
“We had some dumbbell weights here at home and we ordered some bands off Amazon, so we were able to put together a little gym in our garage. We’re usually in there about an hour a day,” said Barron, who was at the rink when he learned his season was over. “I think it was a Thursday and we were supposed to go to Moncton on Friday. We just got the news after practice that the NHL was cancelled and at 5 (p.m.) the decision was coming from the CHL, and we got the decision before we left the rink. That was it.”
During the season, Mooseheads players skate six days a week and do additional training on every day that’s not a game day or the day before a game, including heavy weights, lighter weights and body weight exercises.
“If it’s Monday and we don’t play until Friday it would be a tough workout, a good workout, probably 45 minutes to an hour,” Barron said.
“Then there’s days we’ll just do a short 15-minute workout, just to keep your body going and engaged.”
Barron hasn’t been on skates since the season was cancelled, which “feels weird,” and said the team told them during exit interviews that they’re being relied on to have the discipline to keep fit.
“Most guys I’ve talked to, they’re all working out at home or doing something,” said Barron, who this week was named the 16th best available North American skater for the NHL Entry Draft.
Sven Stammberger can actually use the rest.
Following graduation from Dalhousie, Stammberger played professional basketball this season in Germany for the Tubingen Tigers.
After a Wednesday practice concluded, the team got the news that their game scheduled for Saturday had been cancelled.
“After that practice we never practiced together again, we had a team meeting where they said we don’t know what’s going on,” Stammberger said. “We didn’t practice because we had some guys dealing with injuries, and over that next week the team started sending the Americans and Canadians back home.”
Before the season ended, Stammberger was exercising about fours a day over two sessions.
“We’d have team weights twice a week and I’d always go in one extra time, so three mornings would be that,” he said. “Usually two or three mornings would be spent shooting and then we’d have practice in the evening. On game days, we’d shoot in the morning and play in the evening.”
Stammberger said he’s doing “hardly anything” right now, partly because he’s healing from Achilles tendon and hamstring injuries, but he’s trying to keep up his strength as best he can when gyms are closed.
“I’ve not been doing anything running-wise because I want to get rid of those (injuries) before I start training, so for me training has just been … a lot of different types of push ups, I have a chin up bar so I do chin ups and pull ups. That’s basically it,” said Stammberger, whose workouts are self-directed because he doesn’t yet have a contract yet for next season. “I have been messaging a couple of the guys, one especially he lives in Tubingen so he has access to the gym and all the equipment, he has a key to the gym and since no one else is using it he can go in there. I’m kind of jealous of that.”
