Coach Nova
Coach Nova combines artificial intelligence, structured hockey knowledge, scientific research and coaching expertise to help coaches make better decisions.
Knowledge base version 1.0.0 · Last reviewed: 2026-09-08
General-purpose artificial intelligence models hold very broad knowledge. Coach Nova builds on one of them, then adds a specialized layer built and governed by muleky.
Artificial intelligence provides the engine. The Coach Nova Hockey Bible provides the specialized context.
That muleky layer is made of:
Skills let Coach Nova draw on the knowledge that fits the question, rather than loading the entire knowledge base indiscriminately.
1 — Understand
Coach Nova identifies what the coach is actually trying to solve.
2 — Draw on the right Skills
Coach Nova identifies the relevant domains among those available to it: hockey development, performance, nutrition and sleep, psychology, Safe Sport.
3 — Contextualize
Where relevant, Coach Nova accounts for age, level, context, point in the season, player development and the coach's objective.
4 — Turn knowledge into action
Coach Nova aims for an answer a coach can use: observation → likely cause → intervention → what to watch for.
The Hockey Bible is a modular, evolving knowledge base. Each domain gathers reference notes attributed to their sources, along with rules stating when to use the domain and how to answer from it.
Teaches skating, puck handling, passing, shooting, individual and team tactics (forecheck, breakouts, zone entries, coverage, power play), practice design and season planning, as well as goaltending. Use it to teach or correct an on-ice skill, choose a system, or build a practice.
9 reference notes
Covers off-ice and on-ice testing, acceleration, speed, power, supervised resistance training, training load and maturation. Use it to assess or develop fitness, dose volume, or when a coach is worried about overtraining.
6 reference notes
Covers eating around games and tournaments, hydration at the rink, teenage sleep and recovery. Use it for an early-morning game, a multi-day tournament, or an unexplained drop in energy.
4 reference notes
Covers motivation, confidence after a mistake, coach communication, leadership, locker-room cohesion and psychological safety. Use it for a behaviour, engagement or locker-room issue, or to know how to talk to a player or a parent.
6 reference notes
Covers the prevention of harassment and abuse, bystander intervention, boundaries for adult conduct, injury awareness and reporting procedures. Use it whenever a situation affects a young person's safety, integrity or dignity, or an adult crosses a line.
4 reference notes
Recognizes that a question depends on a dated, local rule (division, class, age category, body checking, duration, dimensions, season). DELIBERATELY EMPTY: no authorized regulatory source is included. Use it to produce a correct abstention, never to state a rule.
Incomplete layer — deliberately holds no regulatory content. Coach Nova recognizes when a question depends on a rule and points to the official source instead of answering it.
The official Canadian and Quebec regulatory layer is being developed separately. Coach Nova is not an official regulatory source.
Coach Nova holds several specialized knowledge domains called Skills. When a coach asks a question, Coach Nova can draw on the relevant Skills — psychology, performance or nutrition, for example — and consult the associated references before forming an answer.
A Skill's references are known in advance: Coach Nova does not go looking for sources on the internet at answer time. The URLs and DOIs kept in the registry serve provenance, attribution and verification.
General-purpose AI tools are excellent. The difference is not the power of the model, but the hockey context muleky builds around it.
Coach Nova does not use some other kind of magic. Its advantage comes from the hockey context muleky builds and governs around artificial intelligence.
Coach Nova draws on a selection of knowledge coming notably from:
The muleky hockey layer is progressively enriched with original, reviewed content covering notably:
Not all of Coach Nova's tactics come from scientific articles: there is no equivalent open corpus on hockey technique. Coach Nova instead aims to combine evidence + hockey experience + the coach's context.
Coach Nova is designed to distinguish, where possible, the nature of what it puts forward.
A rule
“the rulebook states…”
A scientific conclusion
“research shows…”
A best practice
“common practice is…”
A tactical principle
“the principle is…”
A coaching option
“one option is…”
A hypothesis
“I suggest, to be validated…”
A good coaching answer is not only about knowing what to suggest. It is also about knowing what the recommendation rests on, and with how much confidence to present it.
The Coach Nova knowledge base currently draws on 10 public sources whose licence permits reuse and adaptation. Each is recorded with its authors, URL, DOI where one exists, and licence.
Zachary Zenko, Leighton Jones · 2021
Used by: Psychology
Ben Desbrow · 2021
Used by: Nutrition and sleep
Sophia Jowett, Jose Roberto Andrade Do Nascimento-Junior, Chen Zhao, Jyoti Gosai
Used by: Psychology
Karolien Adriaens, Helena Verhelle, Gjalt-Jorn Ygram Peters, Leen Haerens, Tine Vertommen · 2024
Used by: Safe Sport
Stephen J. McQuilliam, David R. Clark, Robert M. Erskine, Thomas E. Brownlee · 2020
Used by: Performance
Michael Bournival, Gaetan Martini, Francois Trudeau, Jean Lemoyne · 2023
Used by: Performance
2021
Used by: Performance
Lorcan Mason, James Connolly, Lydia E. Devenney · 2023
Used by: Nutrition and sleep, Safe Sport
S. C. Bilgoe · 2025
Used by: Nutrition and sleep
UK Department of Health and Social Care, UK Chief Medical Officers · 2026-07-16
Used by: Performance
Some of the knowledge built into Coach Nova comes from open works whose licence permits reuse and adaptation. Where muleky has summarized, restructured, translated or adapted a work, that is recorded in the registry.
The authors, universities, publishers, governments and organizations cited do not endorse, certify or approve Coach Nova or muleky. They are named strictly as the attribution their licence requires.
No affiliation, approval, certification or partnership with these organizations is implied.
The Coach Nova knowledge base is versioned. Knowledge can be added, revised, replaced or re-validated, and every change is dated in the registry.
Coach Nova is a decision-support tool.
For young athletes, nutrition and conditioning advice is offered as general principles adapted to development, not as a clinical prescription.
Ask Coach Nova a real question from your season, and see what an AI equipped for minor hockey can tell you.