SASKATOON -- The Saskatoon Blades are getting used to life in a bubble, preparing for their opening game of a 24-game WHL regular season Saturday afternoon against Swift Current.
“Essentially, it's a long road trip,” said head coach Mitch Love.
Players and staff from seven WHL teams are living at the dorms on the University of Regina campus, with practice times split between the Co-operators Centre and the Brandt Centre, where every game will be played.
Other than the amount of games played, “every other day essentially, for 48 days”, things don’t appear to be that different on the ice.
“Our practice has been fairly intense so far,” said Love. “It's going to take some time for kids to learn systems and turn the brains back on hockey again, because it's been such a long time off the ice as a group in a team setting.”
It’s off the ice where the adjustments are being made.
“This is a unique thing, you know, this is going to be challenging,” said Love, who’s already experienced similar living conditions while coaching team Canada’s World Junior squad in Edmonton.
Love says the amenities are “not bad” and the quality of food for the teams has been good, but there were issues with portion sizes early on.
“These kids are burning through calories left and right here with the practices and workouts and whatnot,” he said.
“The quantity is something that has been chipped away at, and I think other teams have voiced their opinions on that, and the the dorm here at U of R have done a good job to make those adjustments for the players.”
Goaltender Nolan Maier described his day on a Zoom call Tuesday afternoon.
“We wake up in the morning probably around seven o'clock, and we have our trainer [Brenden Hope] come into our dorms every morning with temperature checks,” he said. “One by one head to the door and have our mask on and get a temperature check, make sure all good.”
Maier says following breakfast around 8 a.m., the players board a bus to the rink for their first practice, with two warm-up and cool-down groups.
“Then after that we head back here to the dorms on the bus—I think it's like a 15 minute bus ride—and then we have lunch. We have a little bit of downtime, and then we'll have meetings with Joshua Hoetmer, our mental performance coach, or we'll have another ice practice or another session that we get on to.”
After that Maier says it’s supper time, followed by some downtime in the dorms, and then it’s curfew in their own dorm rooms.
Rigid schedules like that don’t leave much down time, and Love says players and staff will have resources for the mental grind.
“We're here to support each other,” he said. “The mind is such a powerful thing, and we want to make sure that's right or anything physically won't work.”
Overage forward Caiden Daley says he’ll be taking a leadership role when it comes to the mental welfare of his teammates, and positivity is the best approach to the isolation of the bubble.
“Everyday just trying to be the best you can,” he said.
“If guys are having a bad day, just trying to try to build them up and just say ‘it's okay’. Obviously this experience is is hard on everyone; coaches, staff, players, young players, older players, everyone's kind of going through it for the first time, so we're just trying to stick together.”
“There's going to be good days, there's going to be bad days, but we're going to get through it as a team. There's a lot of resources here that we have to keep us pushing and keeping us positive—our staff has done a great job of doing that so far.”
Love says according to Saskatchewan Health Authority and Western Hockey League protocols, there is no intermingling between the staff and players of each team.
“If we're at the Co-operator Centre for practice, there's certain times we can walk over as a team over there where we avoid any sort of cross over,” he said.
“And then at the dorms, from what I have witnessed so far, teams are doing a really good job of just keeping their guys together when they go to meals and different things like that, so it's very structured that way.”
Blades president and general manager Colin Priestner has said it’s unlikely a league championship will be played, and the focus on this shortened season will be on development rather than winning.
It’s Daley’s final year of WHL eligibility, and there are things to play for beyond simply being competitive.
“You're playing for your individual your game, you're trying to get to the next level,” he said.
“I want to get to that next level so these, these 24 games are huge to push to get maybe a contract or anything kind of after, that so yeah it's a huge opportunity for me.”
Maier will become the franchise’s all-time leader in wins if he adds just seven victories in the bubble.
“It's exciting,” he said. “I know there's lots of great goalies to come out of Saskatoon and being close to that benchmark and high up on the list is pretty special for me.”
