2026 Maritime Regional Conference Review

Dalhousie University in Halifax was our great host again for the 2026 CSCA Maritime Regional Conference. This one-day event included practitioners within the strength and conditioning industry as well as other health and performance related professionals. The attendees were excited to learn more about the field of strength and conditioning and to learn how to best serve others in high performance.

This event started with the opportunity for everyone to grab coffee and connect with others and build relationships. Shauna Forsyth, the Vice President of the CSCA kicked off the morning with some welcoming remarks and an overview of the day entails.

Josh Groeham, the Lead Performance Analyst for the Toronto Blue Jays kicked off the event with demonstrating examples of his team’s performance analysis with the entire Jays organization. Josh’s presentation provided valuable insights on how to simplify performance analysis with a large team and what to focus on when dealing with a plethora of information and data. The information provided was useful for practitioners in any setting and was practical for anyone to implement.

Blake Hatt followed, presenting on how to bridge the gap between sport performance and return to play. Blake talked about his journey within strength and conditioning and how his process with dealing with return to play has evolved over time. For younger practitioners in attendance, his experience and insights were helpful on how to approach building relationships with the therapy team and how constant communication with sport performance and therapy is essential for return to play to help athletes return to high level sport.

This year’s student speakers included individuals from Dalhousie University and Acadia University. Both individuals presented on their experiences as interns within the strength and conditioning department at their respective schools. For those in attendance, this information provided great insights on what to expect as a senior intern and discussions on each student’s research areas.

The afternoon session began after lunch. Dr. Moji Kaviani, who is a Professor in the School of Nutrition and Dietetics at Acadia University provided valuable information on how to optimize athletic performance through evidence-based sports supplement strategies. As strength and conditioning coaches, we are sometimes tasked with providing nutrition support. The information that Dr. Moji Kaviani provided was helpful for practitioners to give advice to their athletes to help optimize their performance no matter what they have available to them.

Travis Dorsey was next, who presented on load monitoring within Rugby. His discussion on how his team’s integrated approach for the Canadian Woman’s Rugby 15s team was helpful to understand what an integrated support team looks like from a national level perspective. His process on collecting and filtering through data was valuable whether you have a tremendous amount of technology to work with or not. His presentation demonstrated what high performance looks like on the national level, and how communication with the athletes’ club teams is critical to make sure the athlete is getting the best care throughout the entirety of the year.

After a short break, Aubrey Landry, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Cape Breton University discussed simplifying data on force plates. Force plates can include many metrics and information that can overwhelm many coaches. Aubrey’s presentation explained how to filter through the date and information to focus on a few key metrics, especially within the CMJ. His analysis went through understanding the force-time curve in a CMJ and what to look for in each subsection in the force-time curve.

Morgan Campbell concluded the day on how practitioners can individualize within a team setting. Morgan is the co-founder of ORKA performance in PEI, and has worked with professional and developing athletes, including ice hockey. Morgan’s approach on individualization within a team setting was practical and easy to implement for coaches dealing with any team. His emphasis on assessing athletes and using that information to place athletes in certain groups to minimize their weaknesses and continue to enhance their strengths can be implemented immediately for any coach to help enhance each athlete’s performance.

There were great conversations with all attendees, members and presenters throughout the day, with many looking to connect with each other and building their respective networks. The feedback from all that were present was positive for the organisation, and some discussion about next year’s event and what to expect from the growth of the CSCA.