Sports Science Comes Into Play

from Amalie Benjamin of the NHL's website, When the Arizona Coyotes step onto the Qantas 787-9 Dreamliner that will take them from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday night, their movements -- their sleep, their meals, their supplements -- will be part of a carefully crafted dance designed for optimum performance and recovery, a plan created to tamp down on the tolls a transpacific flight might take. The lights will dim at an optimal time. The meals will be served on Australian Eastern Time. The hope is that it will help. There are no guarantees, of course. But faced with the prospect of a 15-plus hour flight and a 17-hour time difference, the Coyotes -- along with their counterparts, the Los Angeles Kings -- are working their hardest to make a trip to Australia not much harder than one to New York. "Anything that we can help them to find a one percent improvement, I think our guys are really open to," Coyotes high performance director Devan McConnell said. Because although there is plenty of excitement for the Coyotes and Kings about going to Australia for the 2023 NHL Global Series, where the teams will play two exhibition games at Rod Laver Arena on Sept. 23 and 24, the trip is not without its pitfalls. continued