One good night’s sleep reduces fatigue in hockey players

By Martin LaSalle Sep 14th, 2026

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In 5 seconds A single night of extended sleep is enough to reduce fatigue and sharpen cognitive performance in young hockey players, according to a UdeM study involving Quebec Remparts players.

Twenty-two players from the Québec Remparts of the Maritimes-Québec Junior Hockey League participated in the study conducted by Guido Simonelli and Giorgio Varesco of the University of Montréal (UdeM).
Photo : Jonathan Roy

Could the secret to bouncing back after a gruelling practice be as simple as sleeping just a little bit longer for one night?

A study of Quebec Remparts players by Professor Guido Simonelli and his research team in Université de Montréal’s Department of Medicine suggests that the answer is yes. They found that one night of extended sleep reduces perceived fatigue and boosts performance on demanding cognitive tasks.

Over the ramparts of fatigue

For young elite athletes, fatigue is a constant companion. They must train, compete and take online classes at the same time. Sleep is often the first casualty.

Yet sleep is one of the most accessible and least costly recovery tools available to athletes, provided they know how to use it effectively.

“We’ve long known that sleep deprivation impairs performance,” said Simonelli. “But we know far less about the opposite effect—what happens when you extend sleep for just one night. That kind of one-off strategy is realistic for an athlete in mid-season, whereas extending sleep for several days in a row can be much harder to fit into their schedule.”

To test this hypothesis, the research team worked with the entire roster of the Quebec Remparts, a team in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL).

The project included a knowledge-transfer component in which the team received sleep and performance training, in collaboration with Somnolence+, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sleep health. The study received financial support from Polysleep, a Quebec-based sleep-products company.

Guido Simonelli, professor at the Faculty of Medicine at Université de Montréal
Photo : Guido Simonelli

A training camp with a difference

The experiment was conducted in September 2024 during training camp, when the practice and game schedule was stable from week to week and the players’ academic load wasn’t increased by exams.

Twenty-two players, with an average age of 17, took part in the study. Each had one night of normal sleep and one night of extended sleep in which they spent 10 hours in bed, in random order, with five days between the two.

Since wake-up time couldn’t be changed—the players had to get up around 6:45 to be at the arena by 8:00—their sleep was extended by moving bedtime earlier.

After each night, the players completed a two-hour hockey practice, followed by a demanding 30-minute cognitive task requiring sustained focus while ignoring distractions—similar to the classic Stroop test, in which participants must name the colour of letters that spell a different colour.

Their perceived fatigue, alertness and neuromuscular performance were measured three times: before the practice, after the practice and after the cognitive task.

It doesn’t take much

The players slept an average of 424 minutes on a normal night. During the extended-sleep night, they slept an average of 491 minutes, a 16% increase.

Sleep efficiency, time to fall asleep and nighttime wakefulness were similar across the two conditions. “So sleeping longer didn’t come at the cost of sleep quality,” Simonelli commented.

After extended sleep, reaction time on the demanding task improved by 8% and perceived fatigue decreased by 23%.

“What struck us was that these benefits appeared after just one night, in athletes who typically sleep around seven hours,” Simonelli said. “Even a modest gain can make a difference for elite athletes, who already have a high level of physical fitness and have limited room for improvement.”

On the other hand, extended sleep had no measurable effect on a shorter, three-minute psychomotor vigilance task, nor on jump height or grip strength. All three showed the same pattern under both conditions, improving after practice and then returning to baseline.

“The duration of the task seems to be key,” said Simonelli. “A 30-minute task tests mental endurance in a way that a three-minute task cannot. That’s probably why the benefits of extended sleep are seen most clearly in the longer test.”

Simonelli hypothesized that the effects stemmed from the functioning of the dorsal prefrontal cortex. “This is a brain region involved in regulating perceived effort and cognitive control—a region engaged by our task,” explained Giorgio Varesco, a postdoctoral fellow and the study’s first author. “Extended sleep may enhance this region’s function, sustaining performance on long and demanding cognitive tasks.”

Giorgio Varesco, postdoctoral researcher at Université de Montréal
Photo : Giorgio Varesco

Unanswered questions

As the study involved only one male team, the findings can’t be generalized—especially to young female athletes. And the players weren’t blind to each sleep condition, so a placebo effect resulting from their awareness of having slept longer can’t be ruled out.

“Our results show that a simple, low-cost strategy that involves no drugs can help reduce fatigue in young elite athletes,” Simonelli concluded. “The next questions are whether these benefits translate into better on-ice performance, and whether they hold up at different points in the season.”

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