April 25, 2024 | Sports | Written by Ilya Ruderman
Ed Robson Arena opened in September 2021, finally giving students easy access to home games. However, that wasn't the only change within the University of Colorado hockey program.
The University of Colorado hockey team finished the 2023-2024 season ranked 15th in the nation with a 21-13-3 record. But just three years before him, the Tigers finished with an abysmal 4-17-2 record under him.
The Tigers dismantled their coaching staff in 2021, firing former coach Mike Haviland, who guided the team through seven losing seasons. The University of Colorado has named Chris Mayotte as the new head coach of its hockey team and Cam Davidson as the program's new strength and conditioning coach.
The two had something in common: trust in data.
Before arriving at the University of Colorado, Mayotte served as an assistant coach at the University of Michigan. Meanwhile, Cam Davidson most recently served as assistant director of performance enhancement at Penn State.
Senior defenseman Andrew Nicklaus was a freshman on the University of Colorado hockey team during the coronavirus-shortened 2020-21 season. Nicklaus recalls that the team did not track any statistics and that the one-mile bike test was the only conditioning test conducted.
“I mean, my freshman year, most seniors didn’t have dreams of playing pro hockey. [college]” said Niklas. “I don't feel like those seniors were trying to get better.”
In the fall of 2021, the University of Colorado hockey program began using the Catapult system.
“All the players wear a tracking system called Catapult,” said second-year assistant coach and former Colgate University hockey player John Lidgett. “There's a GPS tracker inside. And all these numbers are entered into a software that our strength coach, Cam Davidson, has.”
“I don’t feel it,” freshman forward and 2023 Seattle Kraken draft pick Zach Wisdom said. “It's an Under Armor-like material, and it's like a sports bra. You wear it with straps and it has a little pocket in the back. [where the Catapult stays]”
The Catapult system allows teams to track players' “stats” such as load, intensity, heart rate, and acceleration.
“We track it (statistics) practice by practice, drill by drill. It gives us an idea to monitor where our players are and how much they're spending,” CC Hockey Operations said director and former Ohio State women's soccer coach Emily West. Hockey assistant coach.
“There's an internal load and an external load. The internal load is your heart rate,” Davidson said. “External loads refer to anything that happens outside the body. Catapult has an algorithm that combines these two parts.”
Davidson explained that a player's load is how much work is being done, and that a player's load over time equates to intensity. Intensity is a function of time, so typically the longer a player is on the ice, the lower the intensity.
“If he's a really defensive defenseman, he might not move his feet as much as a centerman because a centerman is on the ice.”
Catapults can also signal that something is wrong within your body. Wiz experienced this firsthand. In late November, he had a typical Wednesday practice where he felt a little sick but wasn't sure if it was his illness or not. After practice, Wisdom went to the team's athletic trainer, Cody Ahlgrim, and told him he wasn't feeling well.
“Actually, I came looking for you,” Cody told Wisdom. “My heart rate was going up here, but my workload was going down here.”
Wisdom went to get tested and was found to have strep throat. He will miss the next week and a half, including three games.
“I would have played. I wouldn't have thought anything of it,” Wisdom said. “[The Catapult] Your body is important, so it helps to let your coach know what's going on behind the scenes with your body. You only got one of them. ”
Another important analytical system used by the University of Colorado is the force plate. The force plate test action is essentially a box jump with hands on hips. During the summer, players are considered less fatigued and test their maximum force plates. That becomes the baseline and is compared to force plate data throughout the season.
Force plates track a set of statistics. Davidson said the five statistics he tracks from the force plate are jump height, peak power, eccentric braking, takeoff time and modified RSI (mRSI).
“Jump height is rather an indicator of competition; mRSI is an indicator of fatigue, eccentric braking and peak power are indicators of strength, and takeoff time is an indicator of speed,” Davidson said. “People who are bad at eccentric braking but good at takeoff speed are fast, but a little weak.''
Based on the force plate results, Davidson can develop training plans to improve players' physical weaknesses.
Colorado College also uses Hudl and InStat, which provide advanced in-game video analytics.
“Huddle records time on the ice, but [also] The shots on goal, where they took the chances, the chances were outside the box and inside the box, high accuracy, chances, chances,” West said. InStat does much the same thing.
The advanced analytics available to the University of Colorado are also used in the recruiting process. Lidgett said the coaches spend a lot of time with the recruits on statistics and show them there is a plan for their development and that the University of Colorado is a place where they can grow toward a professional career. .
“Knowing that they care about your body and care about how you feel is definitely a big, big factor in you getting into college, and that's what attracted me to the school. “That was one of the things that made me feel,” Widham said.
“I have to give all props to Mayotte and the coaches, because if they didn't care [the stats]It's a complete waste of time,'' said Davidson, who understands that he cannot do his job properly without the support of the coaching staff.
The University of Colorado Tigers hockey team has come a long way since its four-win season three years ago. And the University of Colorado hockey program can't make decisions based on some data.
