No more beer league: Why NHLers are choosing sleep optimization over alcohol during the season

New York Times

3 days ago

Summer rolls on. For hockey players, it is the window for golf, weddings, Stanley Cup celebrations, vacations and cookouts. Alcohol can be a common companion.
But come October, when the 2025-26 NHL season begins, some players will turn off the taps for one specific reason.
Charlie Coyle had yet to be drafted when Tony Amonte, his cousin, concluded his NHL career in 2007. But what the veteran of 1,174 NHL games shared years ago with Chuck Coyle, the center's father, left an impression.
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'You go out, you drink, you have a good time, you won't be the same for a month. That's what I always remember him saying when I was younger,' the Columbus Blue Jackets forward recalled his dad's telling of Amonte's belief. 'Maybe that's an exaggeration. Maybe not. But I have that in my head.'
Amonte's formula may not be scientific. But part of the reason the 33-year-old Coyle rarely drinks during the season is that he wants to avoid, whenever possible, any disruption to a key part of his life as an athlete: sleep.
According to Dr. Alen Juginovic, a sleep consultant and Harvard Medical School postdoctoral fellow, the general rule is that it takes one hour for alcohol dehydrogenase, an enzyme in the liver, to metabolize a five-ounce glass of wine. The process, however, does not commence immediately upon consumption. If a player drinks at night, metabolism usually takes place after he falls asleep.
'If you take a glass of wine or beer 30 minutes or an hour before sleep, it's probably going to get metabolized around midnight or 1 a.m., ' Juginovic said. 'That's when the problems can actually start.'
It's common to think that alcohol, which is a sedative, can help people fall asleep quickly. The issue comes later during the window in which metabolism would occur. It would be within the typical 100-minute sleep cycle: Stage 1 (light sleep), Stage 2 (slightly deeper), Stage 3 (deep sleep) and rapid eye movement. Were it to take place within Stage 3, it would disrupt the cycle's most restorative segment.
Juginovic explains that sleep becomes very light and fragmented during alcohol metabolism. Some people even experience micro-arousals. As a result, it's very likely, according to Juginovic, that alcohol will decrease the length of deep sleep and REM.
'Your brain actually goes, in a very brief moment, to an awake state. Even though you're not consciously aware you're awake,' Juginovic said. 'Those are those micro-arousals that happen many, many times during the night. Unfortunately, then the brain doesn't get enough deep sleep, and you feel even worse during the morning.'
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This would be one thing for anyone on a normal schedule. NHL schedules are anything but normal.
Consider the player who wakes up in a hotel room after postgame travel. It's not easy to fall asleep quickly after a late-night flight. The hotel bed may not be as comfortable as the one at home. There may be a morning skate scheduled for that day. Perhaps that night's game is an important one in a playoff race.
The circumstances are already stacked against restful sleep. Alcohol would be just another variable. Sleep requirements vary between players. But in general, Juginovic recommends professional athletes sleep at least eight hours per night. Alcohol-caused interruptions could prevent that threshold from being met.
'You're not going to be as concentrated,' Juginovic said. 'You're not going to be as focused. Your energy levels are going to be down. You're not going to feel your typical self. When you don't feel your typical self — the energy, concentration, all that stuff — you most likely aren't going to be performing at the top level in training, let alone during competition in a game.'
The chances of a missed read, a blown assignment or a shot off net, in other words, rise upon alcohol-affected sleep. In the NHL, where job security is unstable for players on the margins, self-inflicted performance dips are green lights for management to consider alternatives.
The first two years Mark Kastelic was eligible to be drafted, not one NHL team was interested. It was only in 2019, after he recorded a team-leading 77 points and 122 penalty minutes for the WHL's Calgary Hitmen, that the Ottawa Senators took Kastelic in the fifth round.
Kastelic, now 26, has since become a fourth-line Boston Bruins forward. He's done so by chasing marginal gains in saunas, ice baths and hyperbaric chambers. They've helped the 6-foot-4, 227-pounder optimize his time in the gym. Physicality is Kastelic's calling card.
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'I love training,' Kastelic said. 'I love getting better and seeing the results and improvements. That's something that's satisfying to me in the offseason, just seeing the progress from Day 1 to the end of the summer — how I feel, how strong I feel, how explosive.'
During the season, Kastelic goes to bed between 10 and 10:30 p.m. on non-game nights and wakes up at 8 a.m. He sets his bedroom's temperature at 66 degrees. He uses a fan for white noise.
Falling asleep and staying put is no problem. It's not as easy for Kastelic after games. So, given how Kastelic chases every advantage, he is not one to drink during the season aside from occasional social situations.
'I'm always trying to figure out how not to leave any stone unturned and figure out ways I can maximize recovery from little gadgets or different tools — different things that are available out there — to feel my best,' he said.
Personal technology allows players to learn more about their progress. The Toronto Maple Leafs' Vinni Lettieri swears by his Oura ring. It measures, among other things, how many hours the forward sleeps.
By Lettieri's clock, he sleeps for approximately nine hours per night. But the ring can inform him how many of those were quality hours.
'If you have one drink, it might screw up your HRV levels,' Lettieri said. 'It's crazy what it does to you.'
Lettieri, 30, has 155 games of NHL experience. He has played 324 in the AHL. For a player fighting for every varsity appearance, anything that would compromise NHL shifts is not under consideration.
'It's not even a thought,' Lettieri said of regular in-season drinking. 'I just want to try to recover as much as possible.'
Coyle understands why team dinners are times when players order drinks to facilitate socialization. In fact, some veterans believe the decline in drinking has come at a cost to team bonding.
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But Coyle chooses, in most cases, to abstain.
'I think it just affects you so much. Especially if you don't do it often,' Coyle said. 'You try to have a few drinks, you're feeling it. Then the next day, you're probably feeling it. Our schedule is so condensed that one night of bad sleep, we're already against the grain because we play late. So you're not going to bed until certain times. Sometimes we're on the road traveling, so you don't get in until a certain time. To throw another bad night's sleep into that equation, that's going to affect you that much more.'
On occasions when a player does choose to drink, Juginovic recommends one drink per 60 minutes, consumed at least three to four hours before bedtime. This allows metabolism to take place before sleep.
But Juginovic cautions that abstention is preferable to controlled consumption.
'I know it's socially acceptable to have a glass of wine in the evening,' Juginovic said. 'But that is undeniably going to impact your sleep. If you're a high-performing athlete, I don't think you can afford to not perform in tomorrow's game or tomorrow's training because of a glass of alcohol.'
(Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic, with photos by ArtMarie, SimonKR and Sezeryadigar / iStock Images)