Associations between time zone changes, travel distance and performance: A retrospective analysis of 2013-2020 National Hockey League Data

Objectives: Many studies have investigated the role that travel plays in athletic performance. However, these studies lacked a holistic representation of travel. For instance, they do not consider travel distance and uniquely focuses on travel direction.Design: An open source (www.evolving-hockey.com) provided NHL (2013-2020) game data. In total, this re-sulted in 17,088 regular season games.Methods: Linear and quadratic versions of time zone change (TZA) and adjusted jet lag (AJL) were formulated. TZA captured circadian delay/advance based on travel for a game, with each TZ going eastward and westward reflected by -1 and +1, respectively. AJL advances TZA by allowing TZ acclimation, with each day resulting in a 1-unit change towards circadian neutral. AJL is a season-long rolling summation, which was computed using two different travel approaches: Approach A (AJL_A) assumes travel the day before each game, whereas Ap-proach B (AJL_B) was designed to prioritize being home. A standardized flight tracker determined travel distance for each game. Team ability differences, characterized as difference in total season points, served as an analytic covariate. Outcome variables included goal differential, difference between actual and expected Fenwick save percentage (dFSv%), and goals saved above average (GSAA).Results: GameDistance (beta = -0.14, p = 0.0007), AJL_B2 (beta = -0.15, p = 0.0006), and their interaction (p = 0.0004) associated with GoalDifferential. GameDistance (beta = -0.18, p = 0.02) and AJL_B2 (beta = 0.12, p = 0.03) associated with dFSv%, whereas only AJL_B2 (beta = 0.03, p = 0.05) associated with GSAA.Conclusions: Results suggest that circadian change, in both direction, and greater traveled distance can negatively im-pact NHL athletes.(c) 2022 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study investigates the impact of travel on athletic performance and finds that both time zone change and travel distance have a negative effect on athletes.