Sweat equity: Why the sauna is a hot recovery tactic for NHL players
The Dallas Stars landed in Helsinki, Finland, a few hours later than expected after a flight delay for the start of their Global Series trip last week. That meant the practice they had initially scheduled was canceled. Instead, the team went straight to enjoy one of Finland's proudest institutions: the sauna.
This has become part of the routine for teams that travel to Finland to play in the Global Series. The Finns on the roster want to give their teammates a taste of what life is like in their home country. The experience of a Finnish sauna is unlike anything you'll find in the United States. But the sauna itself isn't foreign to many NHL players.
"It's growing a lot," said Finnish Stars defenseman Esa Lindell . "I feel like even in our team it's so many guys using it. Even on other road trips guys are looking up spots to go recover in the off days."
Last season, the sauna was a fixture of Stars road trips. They went to an indoor/outdoor sauna/cold plunge in Montreal during their off day there. And it's usually goalie Jake Oettinger , an American, doing research on where to find one when the team travels. So this was a group that was well versed on the benefits before heading to Finland.
Maple Leafs defenseman Jani Hakanpää, who played three seasons with the Stars, noticed a change even from when he started playing in Dallas. When he started playing there, the Finns and Russians would be in the sauna but not a lot of other players. By the time he left, it felt like half the team was in there.
"As a Finn, you're like, 'Well we've been doing this all our lives. We already know it's a good thing!'" Hakanpää said.
Part of the change is the growing research on the benefits of sauna usage both for elite athletes and the general population. NHLers mostly opt for the dry sauna, which is typically heated somewhere between 150 and 200 degrees Fahrenheit. The lack of humidity makes the heat more tolerable. According to studies , sauna bathing four to seven times a week reduces the risk of cardiovascular death, decreases the risk of neurodegenerative disease and leads to a decrease in all-cause mortality.
But NHL players are among the fittest people in the population. They're not necessarily pondering their mortality when entering the sauna. They are, however, worried about their longevity throughout the course of a season and their careers. Some studies even show an increase in cardiovascular function with regular sauna use after exercise.
Sabres director of physical performance and head strength coach Ed Gannon said he considers the sauna to be an effective "microstrategy" for recovery with the pillars of recovery being proper nutrition and quality sleep. The NHL plays games so frequently that every strategy a player can use to gain an edge is useful.
"The idea of the sauna, there's some research behind that it can increase blood flow, the heat causes vasodilation and blood flow increases so you can flush toxins out after games or a little bit faster," Gannon said. "What a lot of players will do is transition between cold tubs and saunas. There's also a feel-good factor about the sauna. When you're in between games it's nice to regenerate mentally and physically."
Last season, the Sabres signed veteran defenseman Erik Johnson , in part, because his wisdom would be valuable on the league's youngest team. One of Johnson's first tips for Rasmus Dahlin was that he should buy a sauna for the house he had bought. Dahlin took the advice of the man with a Stanley Cup ring who is just a few NHL games shy of 1,000. Dahlin's outdoor barrel sauna has become part of his nightly routine along with the cold tub. He was fourth in the NHL in time on ice last season and missed just one game. Dahlin's sauna has also become a fixture at team parties as it is big enough to fit a group.
"You feel unbelievable after," Dahlin said.
Johnson first started buying into the idea of using the sauna when working with Nathan MacKinnon 's trainer, Marcin Goszczynski, in Colorado. MacKinnon's fitness and nutrition habits are the stuff of legend in league circles, so his teammates wanted any tips they could get.
"After the game, after practice, on a day off those can be huge boosts in recovery and to your immune system and all of that," Johnson said. "He was the first one to really push that on us and then I would say eight of us probably had saunas at our houses in Colorado."
Gannon is quick to point out that not every player is going to use the same recovery strategies. The Sabres have a large sign in their weight room that has symptoms a player might be feeling and the appropriate recovery strategies for that system listed underneath it. The important thing for Gannon is that every player has a recovery routine of some sort. He doesn't want players just playing a game and leaving the rink.
That's part of the appeal of the sauna. For many, it helps them fall asleep faster after games, which is crucial for athletes along with diet. But playing in the NHL isn't set up to optimize sleep quality.
"The challenge of hockey players is they play at night," Gannon said. "They're taking in caffeine before the game and they're taking in carbohydrates and simple sugars and you've got the energy and the arousal of the game itself.
"The sauna can be part of that. I think a lot of sleep hygiene research out there in the general population you've heard take a warm shower before you go to bed. The sauna acts as that. The warmth of the sauna allows the parasympathetic nervous system to take over a little bit more which can help relax the players. It's a great strategy postgame to bring them back down as well as increase blood flow and improve the removal of waste."
But as Gannon noted, not every player has the same recovery routine. Sabres forward Zach Benson found he liked mobility work and the hot tub. Benson was living with Dahlin last season as a rookie but didn't frequent the sauna in the backyard.
"I'm not getting in there," Benson said. "I'm scared of those things. Too hot. I like hot tubs and only hot tubs. He does have a hot tub but it's covered during the winter. I don't do cold plunge either. I usually just go in the hot tub here. I don't want to do too much recovery. I don't have a problem sleeping. I probably would do it if I had a problem sleeping but I have a problem with too much sleep."
Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen laughed when the topic of sauna popularity came up. He and fellow Finn Henri Jokiharju joke about the rush hour after practice to get into the sauna. The rest of the league is catching up to what Finns have always known.
"Way back in Finland people used to give birth in saunas so some people were born in saunas," Luukkonen said. "I wasn't born in the sauna but I assume I was very young."
Having a sauna at your house in North America is viewed as a luxury. In Finland, it's commonplace. And facilities like the ones the Stars and Florida Panthers visited last week are everywhere in Finland. The experience is comparable to a golf club in the United States, where people gather socially and can enjoy meals between sessions in the sauna.
"I remember we would always go Saturday evening and have the sauna on and the whole family was in there, me my mom and dad and my sister," Hakanpää said. "It was like a weekly thing every Saturday. And then coming summer time being at my grandparents' house, it would be more frequent. You would swim in the lake and then go in the sauna. It's been part of my life since I was a little kid. And it still is. It's nice going back home in the summers when we have one. We'll probably use it four times a week."
Using sauna and cold immersion together is the preferred tactic for a lot of NHLers. Johnson said he'll go in the sauna for 15 or 20 minutes and then do three minutes of cold immersion and repeat the cycle three times. Some players only use the sauna on practice days, but others use it more frequently. When Stars defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin played in Buffalo he had a barrel sauna in his backyard. He would go in at night after games and then lie down in the snow bank as his cold immersion. One of Hakanpää's favorite parts of the sauna is the way it forces him to disconnect.
"You just have to sit there with your teammates," he said. "There's so many aspects. Obviously the physical part but then the mental part as well. Even if you're there by yourself. It's nice and quiet and you have time to reflect on what's been going on."
Gannon sees this as a continuation of the modern athlete focusing more and more on training, nutrition and recovery. He always runs Sabres players through a light workout when they land for a road trip. Now he sees players utilizing the spa facilities at hotels for extra recovery. Johnson has been in the league since 2007, so he's seen that changing mindset firsthand.
"I'd say the biggest difference is when I got in the league guys would just take a case of beer in the sauna and drink beer and sit in there," Johnson said. "Now there's some of that but not to the extent that it used to be. It's always been in the culture."
(Illustration by Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Eliot J. Schechter / Getty, Patrick McDermott / NHLI and iStock)
