Predicting hockey IQ: Researchers鈥� method of assessing young hockey talent could be a game-changer
In a study that is the first of its kind, a research team led by a 黑料不打烊 professor has developed a more objective way to identify ice hockey players鈥� game intelligence, or 鈥渉ockey IQ.鈥� And the method, which pairs objective test results with scouting insights, is likely to yield the most accurate results, the researchers suggest.
鈥淥ur goal is to help scouts move beyond informed guesswork and give all athletes a fair shot. This method could improve how we evaluate an athlete鈥檚 potential in hockey and beyond, and could help scouts make more accurate and fair decisions in high-performance settings,鈥� said Daniel Fortin-Guichard, a professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education at 黑料不打烊, and first author of the study published in the . Co-authors include researchers from other leading Canadian and international institutions. Fortin-Guichard was a postdoc at the University of Toronto at the time the study was conducted.
鈥淐urrent talent identification relies heavily on subjective judgments, which can be subject to biases. Although scouts remain the best overall when it comes to identifying hockey talent, we found that there were some objective tests that could help them (but not replace them) in identifying players that might be strong but have been overlooked either because they were too short, or did not fit the standard mould,鈥� Fortin-Guichard said.
The research, conducted in Canada, involved 40 elite male hockey players who were, on average, 15-16 years old when they were recruited for the study. Researchers evaluated the players using four perceptual-cognitive tasks (plus small-sided games) and compared the results with their coaches鈥� assessments of each player鈥檚 鈥済ame sense鈥� or 鈥渉ockey IQ.鈥� The players were also followed over the course of a year by five hockey scouts who watched each player鈥檚 performance approximately once a week.
The researchers found that while the scouts were better at predicting coaches鈥� assessments of the players than were the test results alone, putting the two together yielded the best results of all.
Fortin-Guichard explained: 鈥淕ame sense is crucial to success in hockey. It involves interpreting what is going on around you and making decisions very quickly about how to move or protect the puck in an ever-changing environment. Both you and all the other players around you are moving at speeds of between 10-35 km per hour. So, you鈥檙e trying to find those spaces and read those cues about who is going where in just fractions of a second.鈥�
The perceptual-cognitive tests used by the researchers that contributed to the prediction of the in-game 鈥榟ockey IQ鈥� included Creyos testing, which looks at things like memory, attention and deductive reasoning ability; videos that allowed them to measure a player鈥檚 anticipation ability and eye-movements; and a virtual reality test where they played VR hockey. The researchers said they believe objective tools, such as those used in the study, could be paired with scouts鈥� evaluations to identify players with meaningful game intelligence who are likely to succeed in the long term.
However, follow-up studies that track players鈥� long-term performance will be needed to confirm the method鈥檚 accuracy, Fortin-Guichard said.
In the meantime, the researchers suggested that sports organizations could use the tasks included in the study to try to increase the likelihood of finding players with the most appropriate perceptual-cognitive skills.
The Study
鈥淏eyond the trained eye: An objective method to predict game sense in team sports鈥� by Daniel Fortin-Guichard et al was published in the Journal of Sports Sciences.
DOI:
Funding
Fonds de Recherche du Qu茅bec-Soci茅t茅 et Culture
