Written by: Shauna Forsyth
Matt Warburton, presenting on the topic of From Question to Insight Answering Sport Science Problems
Saturday, May 24th 2025
Dalhousie University in Halifax Nova Scotia was again the gracious host for our 2025 CSCA Atlantic regional conference. This one day event was well attended as we welcomed 30 S&C professionals, new coaches, and students eager to learn more about the intricacies of high performance training and achieving success as a strength and conditioning coach.
The benefit of our small group was the opportunity to open the day with each attendee introducing themselves and their work and/or study experience. As in the past, this activity has helped facilitate more personal networking throughout the day.
Matt Warburton, a Sport Science Consultant with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and Dalhousie professor opened the event with a deep dive into the uses and benefits of performance technology and its benefits to his athlete management and development. He shared his valuable experience with data analytics with the Maple Leafs, USA Soccer, and additional professional sports organizations. He was able to help our attendees better understand how he bridges the gap between theory and practice by incorporating tools designed to assist in athlete monitoring and performance analysis.
Andrew Koscar followed Matt with a presentation outlining his remarkable strength and conditioning journey that started as an internship under Matt Nichol and took him around the globe with various sports (China, Russia, and the USA). For student’s in attendance, his message was simple; the cultivation of your relationships with athletes will always produce a bigger buy-in than your coaching abilities. When faced with language barriers and cultural differences, his ability to connect with both athletes and coaching staff helped paved the way for a reputation that launched a very successful career in the industry.
Scott Willgress, presenting on the topic of Long Term Athlete Monitoring: Learnings and Questions
This year’s hands-on session was provided by local Olympic weightlifting coach and athlete John-Paul Primeau. JP’s presentation on teaching the clean to athletes garnered much participation as the majority of attendees grabbed a bar and began learning how to progress and teach the individual movements of the exercise. Assisting JP was one of his competitive athletes who was able to demonstrate each movement while JP coached him through it, from start to finish. When each movement had been demonstrated, JP actively walked around the weight room helping individuals with their personal technique and answering questions. It was fascinating to see the improvements amongst those participating at the end of his 1-hour session.
Following our on-site networking lunch, the afternoon session began. This was the first year we invited students to join us and present on their current research projects. The interest was substantial and we had 4 students from Memorial University in Newfoundland and 3 students from Dalhousie join us. Topics presented included non-linear periodization in NCAA D1 football athletes, ice hockey goaltender performance analysis, and the effects of different stretching techniques on range of motion and pain pressure threshold. Each presentation prompted much discussion between our attendees, while providing a great presentation experience for the students.
Scott Willgress completed our event with a quick afternoon wake-up, getting everyone up out of their seats and moving around before discussing long-term athlete monitoring. Scott’s wealth of knowledge and experience working with national athletes was evident as he brought us through the long-term monitoring systems he uses for both Canada’s gymnastics and sprint kayak canoe programs. Speaking to each sport, and individual athletes separately, he was able to provide tracking data, the variables he prioritizes, and the outcomes of that data within each periodized cycle. This information led to many questions and great discussions around the role the data currently and potentially could play in the holistic development and performance of each athlete.
Feedback from both attendees and presenters was extremely positive with talk already of future events. A small group of coaches continued our networking in classic East Coast fashion over a couple of pints at Garrison Brewery on the Halifax Waterfront.
