First "Athlete" in the NHL

[AdvancedPressure]

There is a Netflix series "Losers" that tells the stories of athletes / teams across multiple sports. One episode, "Stone Cold" focuses on Canadian curling. It's a great watch and takes a bit of a deep dive into curling, specifically the state of the sport in Canada in the 80's.

The episode focuses primarily on Canadian curler Pat Ryan and his Alberta team. Ryan and his team are credited as being among the first "athletes" in curling. Unlike many of their competitors at the time, they did not drink the night before matches, nor did they smoke on breaks, and they also stepped up their training regiment relative to other competitors in the sport. These days all curlers take a similar approach to the sport.

It got me thinking. Who was the first "athlete" in the NHL? Someone who was ahead of their time in their training methods and all around approach to the game. Any ideas?

Click to read more...

 

[overpass]

I don't know about a specific player, but Lloyd Percival was ahead of his time with regards to physical training and coaching for hockey. The Detroit Red Wings hired him to work with their players in the early 50s while they were finishing in first place for seven straight seasons and winning 4 Stanley Cups.

https://www.cbc.ca/sports-content/h...ate-lloyd-percival-was-ahead-of-his-time.html

IS EVERYONE IN SPORTS CRAZY BUT LLOYD PERCIVAL? | Maclean's | APRIL 18 1964

Percival's one memorable breakthrough into the NHL had its small beginning in 1946 when Jack Adams, then the coach of Detroit Red Wings, gave a copy of Percival's new booklet, How to Train for Hockey, to each of his players and wrote to the author that it was “one of the best books I've seen since I've been in hockey."

Percival doesn't know if the fact that the Red Wings climbed from fourth place to second that year and to the top for the two following years, influenced Adams, but in 1950 Adams, then general manager of the team, invited Percival to test his players’ strengths and weaknesses and make recommendations for improving their condition and ability.

Percival produced a ten-volume report analyzing each player, suggesting exercises for each, plus team drills far more intricate than what Percival calls the “stop, start and scrimmage" drills that most NHL teams practise.

For the next five years Detroit enjoyed the most fabulous half-decade in hockey history: the Red Wings finished first in each of those years, including two successive record-breaking hundred-point seasons. Was this coincidence or was Percival proving his points?

“Percival gave us a lot of valuable help," Adams said recently, “and I recall that the smarter the hockey player the more attention he paid to Percival. I’m talking about men like Howe and Kelly and Sawchuck — and it’s no coincidence that those three are still in the NHL thirteen years later.”

If the Red Wings had proved that Percival had a winning formula, why did Detroit follow its magnificent five years with several years of finishes out of — or barely in — the playoffs? Adams shrugged. It turned out that Percival’s winning formula required some hard work and dedication on the part of the athletes involved. "There's just so much you can make a hockey player do,” said Adams. “After those big years some new younger players started to come along that just didn't seem interested in learning new ways to train for the game. But as I said, the smart ones stayed with Percival’s system and stayed in the big time.”

Adams said there is no question Canadian sport in general has made shamefully little use of Percival’s talents, which he considers formidable. “Why?” says Adams, “because people don’t like to be told — and Percival tells them.”

Gordie Howe told me he still uses some exercises Percival taught at Detroit fourteen years ago, and he finds them particularly valuable when he is tired. (In spite of what many hockey fans believe, Howe admits he sometimes does get tired.) “Percival and I saw eye to eye from the beginning,” said Howe. "A lot of the things he recommended I found 1 had been doing instinctively and I got a big kick out of Percival being able to tell me why I was doing them right. I'd say that Percival is tops in track and field but can help any athlete.”

Red Kelly, another of the smart durables mentioned by Adams, said that he had always used Percival's ideas in exercise and diet. “And I’m finding them even more useful as I get older,” said Kelly. "One of Percival’s ideas that gave the Wings an edge over the other teams in those days when we were breaking all records for consecutive league championships was his ‘sitting on the train' exercises. Other teams would come off a long train trip and maybe have to go right to the arena with cramped muscles. Percival showed us how to exercise while sitting down and that was a big help.”

 

[BadgerBruce]

The first player to immediately come to mind is Dan Bain. The guy was a champion at pretty much everything — roller skating, gymnastics, cycling, lacrosse, curling, snowshoeing, hockey — probably a bunch more. I’m not aware of any particular training regimen he followed, but I can’t believe he didn’t have one. Competed for titles in a bunch of sports into his mid-50s.

 

[sr edler]

Not hockey but here's an article from 1905 about New Jersey native American speed skater Morris Wood which touches on his serious approach to training and the fact that he didn't touch either liquor or cigarettes.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Tommy Shaughnessy was a very short-lived coach for the Blackhawks, leaving the team after only one season to practice law.

His one mark on history is that he had gone to Notre Dame and played football under Knute Rockne, and brought college football's off-field training methods to hockey. I don't know to what extent it may have been uploaded into the culture of other organizations, but that was an identifiable moment in time when the standard preseason training camp (jog around the arena to get your summer fat off, do some jumping jacks to get the blood pumping, then we'll hit the ice) was advanced to something quite a bit more modern (hit the weight room, then we're headed to the track for conditioning drills... ice time starts next week).

 

[MadLuke]

I imagine there were many before him, but Lionel Conacher seem to have been a complete athlete (baseball, track and field, swimming, boxing), started in the nhl for the Pirates in 1923

Edit has other pointed below:
He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.

 

[kaiser matias]

I imagine there were many before him, but Lionel Conacher seem to have been a complete athlete (baseball, track and field, swimming, boxing), started in the nhl for the Pirates in 1923

That's who I was thinking. Don't know how dedicated he was to training specifically, but he played enough sports he surely was active year round.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I imagine there were many before him, but Lionel Conacher seem to have been a complete athlete (baseball, track and field, swimming, boxing), started in the nhl for the Pirates in 1923

He is in the Canadian Football and Lacrosse Hall of Fames as well.

 

[VanIslander]

I imagine there were many before him, but Lionel Conacher seem to have been a complete athlete (baseball, track and field, swimming, boxing), started in the nhl for the Pirates in 1923

Edit has other pointed below:
He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.

He put on skates for the first time at age 16!

And became a HHOFer.

He is a "natural" athlete.
He is also Canada's Greatest Athlete of the Half-Century.

 

[Big Phil]

Lionel Conacher is the first guy I thought of as well.

As for being the first to have a body like a Greek God, I'll say Bobby Hull.

That being said, the average strength of an average man was better than it is today, what with the more manual labour jobs and such and needing to do so much more manually. So what constitutes as an "athlete"? Because even for a while Maurice Richard was working at a factory as a Hab. Depending on what he was doing, or others before him, that could have been a heck of a workout alone. Maybe not training in the modern day type of way perhaps.

 

[MXD]

Like many, I came to say Lionel Conacher.
But reading the OP, I got the impression that what's being looking for isn't so much hockey's first athlete, but hockey's "equivalent" to Michael Schumacher : someone who took his job very, very seriously, training and working a lot even in the offseason, and thus pushing the whole field and subsquently the next generations to do the exact same so they aren't left behind, and thus changing the game forever.

And there's got to be a better answer than "Sidney Crosby".

 

[Nick Hansen]

I took it the same way as the poster above, and to mention someone earlier than Crosby, Chris Chelios came to mind? Although I seriously don't know how he approached it in his younger years, I will just never forget the stuff about him doing the cycle in the sauna. Here he claims to have been doing it for thirty years (1:02), uploaded in 2013:

 

[AdvancedPressure]

Like many, I came to say Lionel Conacher.
But reading the OP, I got the impression that what's being looking for isn't so much hockey's first athlete, but hockey's "equivalent" to Michael Schumacher : someone who took his job very, very seriously, training and working a lot even in the offseason, and thus pushing the whole field and subsquently the next generations to do the exact same so they aren't left behind, and thus changing the game forever.

And there's got to be a better answer than "Sidney Crosby".

Yes, this is exactly what was meant - basically what Georges St. Pierre was to MMA; the first (or one of the first) to really take their preparation, training, and overall approach to the sport to the next level, and who, in doing so, greatly influenced the approach and training methods of future athletes in the sport.

 

[VanIslander]

... "equivalent" to Michael Schumacher : someone who took his job very, very seriously, training and working a lot even in the offseason, and thus pushing the whole field and subsquently the next generations to do the exact same so they aren't left behind, and thus changing the game forever.

Tom Brady!

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

If you are fat is there no way for you to play in NHL?

 

[VanIslander]

If you are fat is there no way for you to play in NHL?

Ask Cy Denneny, Keith Tkachuk or Phil Kessel.

 

[MadLuke]

But reading the OP, I got the impression that what's being looking for isn't so much hockey's first athlete, but hockey's "equivalent" to Michael Schumacher : someone who took his job very, very seriously, training and working a lot even in the offseason, and thus pushing the whole field and subsquently the next generations to do the exact same so they aren't left behind, and thus changing the game forever.

I feel the latest possible candidate must be Gretzky, if there legends was not false he started to train/play like a pro of the days has a young kid, studying the game while watching it and so on. We can look for candidate before him.

Bobby Orr started to play organized hocket at 5 and the Bruins organisation did finance is minor hockey organisation and he signed pro at what 14 ? Seem they took step for him to be able to play/train full time.

 

[MadLuke]

If you are fat is there no way for you to play in NHL?

If you are a special athlete like Dustin Byfuglien you can reach the 300 pound.

 

[James Walker]

Ask Cy Denneny, Keith Tkachuk or Phil Kessel.

What I have heard is that Kessel "puffed up" because of the medication he had to take to survive after having testicular cancer.
Doesn't anyone remember this ?

 

[GrizzGreen]

What I have heard is that Kessel "puffed up" because of the medication he had to take to survive after having testicular cancer.
Doesn't anyone remember this ?

Also ironic that one of the quicker players in the league is known as "fat" but whatever, found Steve Simmons' burner account.

 

[VanIslander]

What I have heard is that Kessel "puffed up" because of the medication he had to take to survive after having testicular cancer.
Doesn't anyone remember this ?

I also remember his teammates joking about his habit of eating cookies.

Here is one of several examples:

 

[tarheelhockey]

Yes, this is exactly what was meant - basically what Georges St. Pierre was to MMA; the first (or one of the first) to really take their preparation, training, and overall approach to the sport to the next level, and who, in doing so, greatly influenced the approach and training methods of future athletes in the sport.

Part of what makes this difficult to answer is that a lot of early-era players would spend their offseasons doing things like farming which naturally condition the body to be ready for athletic performance. So from their point of view, they were getting ready for the season every day.

Also, for the first 20-30 years of the 20th century the rinks simply closed in the summertime. Players dispersed and didn't come back to the rink until the fall, not because they didn't value training time but because there was no ice to had.

If we're looking for someone who skated year-round and took a scientific approach to nutrition and body conditioning, we're probably looking at the relatively modern era. I would think at least 1950s if not 60s.

 

[Phil Parent]

I don't know about a specific player, but Lloyd Percival was ahead of his time with regards to physical training and coaching for hockey. The Detroit Red Wings hired him to work with their players in the early 50s while they were finishing in first place for seven straight seasons and winning 4 Stanley Cups.

https://www.cbc.ca/sports-content/h...ate-lloyd-percival-was-ahead-of-his-time.html

IS EVERYONE IN SPORTS CRAZY BUT LLOYD PERCIVAL? | Maclean's | APRIL 18 1964

Percival's one memorable breakthrough into the NHL had its small beginning in 1946 when Jack Adams, then the coach of Detroit Red Wings, gave a copy of Percival's new booklet, How to Train for Hockey, to each of his players and wrote to the author that it was “one of the best books I've seen since I've been in hockey."

Percival doesn't know if the fact that the Red Wings climbed from fourth place to second that year and to the top for the two following years, influenced Adams, but in 1950 Adams, then general manager of the team, invited Percival to test his players’ strengths and weaknesses and make recommendations for improving their condition and ability.

Percival produced a ten-volume report analyzing each player, suggesting exercises for each, plus team drills far more intricate than what Percival calls the “stop, start and scrimmage" drills that most NHL teams practise.

For the next five years Detroit enjoyed the most fabulous half-decade in hockey history: the Red Wings finished first in each of those years, including two successive record-breaking hundred-point seasons. Was this coincidence or was Percival proving his points?

“Percival gave us a lot of valuable help," Adams said recently, “and I recall that the smarter the hockey player the more attention he paid to Percival. I’m talking about men like Howe and Kelly and Sawchuck — and it’s no coincidence that those three are still in the NHL thirteen years later.”

If the Red Wings had proved that Percival had a winning formula, why did Detroit follow its magnificent five years with several years of finishes out of — or barely in — the playoffs? Adams shrugged. It turned out that Percival’s winning formula required some hard work and dedication on the part of the athletes involved. "There's just so much you can make a hockey player do,” said Adams. “After those big years some new younger players started to come along that just didn't seem interested in learning new ways to train for the game. But as I said, the smart ones stayed with Percival’s system and stayed in the big time.”

Adams said there is no question Canadian sport in general has made shamefully little use of Percival’s talents, which he considers formidable. “Why?” says Adams, “because people don’t like to be told — and Percival tells them.”

Gordie Howe told me he still uses some exercises Percival taught at Detroit fourteen years ago, and he finds them particularly valuable when he is tired. (In spite of what many hockey fans believe, Howe admits he sometimes does get tired.) “Percival and I saw eye to eye from the beginning,” said Howe. "A lot of the things he recommended I found 1 had been doing instinctively and I got a big kick out of Percival being able to tell me why I was doing them right. I'd say that Percival is tops in track and field but can help any athlete.”

Red Kelly, another of the smart durables mentioned by Adams, said that he had always used Percival's ideas in exercise and diet. “And I’m finding them even more useful as I get older,” said Kelly. "One of Percival’s ideas that gave the Wings an edge over the other teams in those days when we were breaking all records for consecutive league championships was his ‘sitting on the train' exercises. Other teams would come off a long train trip and maybe have to go right to the arena with cramped muscles. Percival showed us how to exercise while sitting down and that was a big help.”

The Soviets took Percival's litterature as gospel and it was the basic for their training techniques.

Legend says that Soviet scouts mentionned this to John Ferguson, and Ferguson didn't know who he was.

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

If you are a special athlete like Dustin Byfuglien you can reach the 300 pound.

That was for one year. Jets management quickly put on a diet and he slimmed down to 265 and stayed around there for the rest of his playing days. When he was 300, it was painfully obvious.

 

[MadLuke]

That was for one year. Jets management quickly put on a diet and he slimmed down to 265 and stayed around there for the rest of his playing days. When he was 300, it was painfully obvious.

And I doubt that an regular player (and not one that is a star and arguably the strongest) would have played at that weight. You need to be so good that you are still an nhler with it.