Scanning is associated with better performance in professional ice hockey

Abstract

Although active exploration of environmental information is essential for specifying one’s action opportunities in team sports, knowledge about the relationship between visual exploratory behaviour and successful actions in ice hockey is scarce. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether scanning prior to pass reception was associated with a higher probability of a successful outcome of the following action among professional ice hockey players. A total of 43 male and 45 female ice hockey players participated in the study. Observations from 22 filmed ice hockey matches from the top Swedish male and female Hockey League (SHL and SDHL, respectively) were included in the study, generating a total of 2,545 actions that were included for analyses. In line with previous research on elite soccer players, the results showed that scanning before receiving a pass increased the probability of a successful subsequent action (β = 0.12, 95% CI = [0.07, 0.17]). Neither gender nor position moderated the relationship between scanning and the probability of a successful outcome. We suggest it is important to acknowledge the benefits of scanning within player education, while also providing concrete training methods so that players can develop their ability to scan before receiving the puck.