Craig Hyslop, Athletic Therapist, Prince George Cougars -photo 250News

Prince George, B.C. – The Prince George Cougars have taken an extra step to ensure the good health of their players this season.

They did so with the hire of Craig Hyslop, the team’s new athletic therapist.

“Yes,starting this season with the new ownership, it was something they wanted to add in,” says Hyslop.

On a typical day he takes the team through a warm-up and a dynamic stretch before they go out on the ice but says that can vary.

“If it’s a day where we haven’t had many games previously or we don’t have a game the next day we’ll do a team work-out usually focusing on a little heart rate training.”

He says that’s commonly followed up with a cool down period on the bikes then a full hip stretch, shower and a hop into the cold tub for five minutes.

Further into the season Hyslop says that schedule can change for players dealing with certain injuries.

“If it’s something they can work through they come in early, but if not we can have them skip the ice time or team workout and I can work on them during the day.”

In addition to that he says it’s also his job to ensure sickness doesn’t spread through the locker room as seen with the spread of mumps in the NHL this season.

“I have not heard of anything like that in our league,” adding the worst thing he’s ever heard of was contagious skin diseases on a football team while in university.

“Our professor told us it came down to the hygiene in their room.”

To mitigate sickness from spreading Hyslop says he and equipment manager Chico Dhanjal “stay on top of the cleanliness of this place” which includes mopping and making sure the laundry and towels are washed everyday.

But how to protect against the spread of germs during a game when players are commonly sharing the same water bottles?

“It would be completely unrealistic for each of them to have their own water bottle on the bench. If any of the players are telling us they have symptoms of a cold (including a runny nose or even a tickle in their throat) we’ll tape a bottle and that’ll be their designated bottle.

He also says he’s on call all day if the players feel a cold coming on.

“I have gotten phone calls or texts before late at night where a player is telling me certain symptoms. Usually we try to bank it on food poisoning which in the best case scenario passes in 12 hours but if not we have a whole variety of nutrients we’ll give the kids and the necessary medication.”

And then there’s the toll the Cougars brutal travel schedule can have on the players.

“We spend a lot more time on the bus (Hyslop travels with the team). It’s a little frustrating but the reality of living in this great place.”

In preparation for those trips he says he and play-by-play man Dan O’Connor will sit down “to decide how we can get vegetables in these kids, how we can make sure they’re eating good.”

He says another great protection against sickness is getting enough sleep.

“We actually purchased polar loops this year. Polar’s the brand and it’s a bracelet the guys wear. It actually tracks their sleeping hours. So if we notice a guy is starting to get run down we can check those loops to see how many hours they’ve been sleeping.”

Hyslop says another thing that helped this year was that three quarters of the kids and the staff got the flue shot noting “that helps quite a bit as well.”

He says all the steps are necessary to ensure the teams stays fit and ready for success.

“It would be horrible if half our team got sick because realistically we have 25 guys on the roster right now including three goalies. So that only leaves us with a couple of guys we can fill spaces with if we have sickness.”