A chance encounter at a Calgary gym has led Steve Saville to a close connection in the NHL.
Born and raised in Labrador City, Mr. Saville set out to complete his Bachelor of Kinesiology at Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S.
After completing his degree, Mr. Saville moved to Calgary to work with the World Health Club. It was there that Mr. Saville met future NHL hockey player, Jay Beagle.
“It was one of those situations where I was working out myself and he happened to be working out at the same time,” he said. “He came up to me and asked me a couple questions, and eventually asked if I would mind working out with him, and I said ‘sure.’ ”
That was four years ago.
Since then, Mr. Saville has moved on to open his own fitness centre, called ATP Athletics, and continues to work with Mr. Beagle.
Mr. Saville says this summer was a particularly important training season for the tough forward.
“The past couple years he had been making improvements,” said Mr. Saville. “He was playing with the NHL for the last couple years as a free agent, on a two-way contract. Every training camp he had better and better results.”
Mr. Saville says working with a professional athlete has its benefits and challenges.
“It’s easier and harder because hockey players have the motivation to do it, it’s their job,” he said. “They also often have the money and the time do dedicate to it. So in that sense it’s a little easier than training someone who has to work 40 hours a week. But it’s also a lot harder because there’s so much pressure that comes with it.”
Mr. Saville says when it comes to hockey players, every aspect of their fitness needs to be finely tuned.
“It can be more specific,” he said. “They need to pass specific tests, there are a lot of goals that need to be met rather than just body composition. They have to be able to perform, they have to be able to recover, they have to be able to progress. It’s a full package.”
Mr. Saville also says each individual athlete has different needs.
“Jay also brought along Karl Azler (fellow Capital) this summer, so I got the opportunity to train with him as well, and each one had different things they wanted to work on. With Jay, we looked at putting some healthy weight on him. He put on about 15 pounds this summer, but he was still just as lean when he left, which is good. With Karl, we actually had to do the opposite, we leaned him out a bit.”
Overall though, Mr. Saville says both players were striving to improve their performace.
“Both of them wanted to be more powerful,” he said. “They wanted to be a bit faster, with a little bit better endurance, and I think that showed in the training camp this year, so that was nice.”
The hard worked paid off. Mr. Beagle made the NHL roster this season, usually playing centre or right wing position. Critics have attributed his fitness regimen to his success this season, and credit his strength and size for making him a good pick for the job.
Mr. Saville agrees, saying he wasn’t completely shocked when he heard that Mr. Beagle had been picked.
“Yeah, I kind of expected it,” he said. “With the way they had been treating him they were definitely interested and they showed a lot of promise in him.”
Despite being confident in Mr. Beagle’s abilities, Mr. Saville says the moment he heard the word was still exhilarating.
“I was super excited,” he said. “I doubt I was more excited than he was, but it was pretty close.”
Overall, Mr. Saville says the experience has been more than rewarding.
“I enjoy all aspects of it,” he said. “They are such good guys to work with; they just want to learn and do better, so it makes my job easy.”
As for the future, Mr. Saville says he plans to continue working with Mr. Beagle.
“So long as they want to work with me, I’m happy to do it.”
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