Imagine attaching a camera to the top of a hockey player’s helmet. The camera sees anything in the player’s field of view. Then imagine sitting down with that player afterwards in front of a video screen. You might show him the video and say, “Why didn’t you pass him the puck right there, he was wide open,” or “Why didn’t you turn around, the defenseman was skating right at you?”
Now imagine the player’s response: “What? I didn’t even see him.” This is exactly what many cognitive engineers witnessed.
With this in mind, USA Hockey funded the development of a program called “IntelliGym.” The purpose of the software is ultimately to improve a player’s hockey sense, which makes them better players on the ice. Having already been developed for basketball, the program had been shown to increase performance in the sport by 30 percent. The initial hope was that this technology could be utilized within USA Hockey’s developmental programs in order to improve the talent that came out of the southern side of the continent.
A rabid supporter of the idea that hockey sense is learned, not innate, I sought out the program, and tracked down Danny Dankner, one of the leading members of the IntelliGym team.
Dankner intrigued me from the start, as he was introduced to this when he was serving as an officer in the Israeli Air Force – the exact place the software was initially tested and utilized. After he completed his military service, Dankner joined the IntelliGym team, helping to publicize and improve upon the Hockey IntelliGym software.
Hockey was much more hesitant to adopt this new technology than basketball. But USA Hockey, which has been a pioneer in utilizing new ideas and equipment to improve their hockey program, was happy to research this new, possibly revolutionary system.
“There’s a big difference between what is actually being perceived by a field of view, and what is being processed by our conscious brain,” said Dankner. “So there are a lot of things going on in front of a player, and the brain cannot always filter this much information. And if you are trained to process more information and be able to divide your attention and switch your attention from one thing to another, faster, you’ll be able to process more information.”
The game is set up like a mock hockey game, but to someone with no introduction to the sport, it could easily be seen as a simple video game kids play, with no relation to hockey. Two teams of multiple players each go back and forth attempting to shoot the “bomb” into each “bunker” to score points.
IntelliGym is not like
NHL 13 or the ilk – instead it requires more thought and planning, much like an actual hockey game. It involves extraordinary multi-tasking abilities: moving your player around the screen, controlling the position of the “bomb” (stickhandling), avoiding opposing players, finding your own open teammates, aiming the bomb at the correct angle, and/or finding an opening toward the bunker and take a shot. Defense also requires smart planning, anticipation, and a keen eye for understanding the movement of the players. In essence, it makes you utilize the same decision-making techniques and thought processes needed to understand hockey – without ever having you actually play hockey in the game.
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As Dankner explained, IntelliGym is supposed to be used in the same way as weight-lifting: only a few times per week maximum, 30 minutes at a time, and never more than one training session per day. The difference in on-ice performance is often apparent after eight to ten hours of brain workout, which can take up to two months.
But forgetting just on-ice improvements, IntelliGym has other benefits, which is crucial considering that 99% of the players using this program will never play professional hockey. Bodychecking is the most common cause of hockey injuries, accounting for 86%. The majority of injured players say that their injury was caused by being hit unexpectedly – in other words, a lack of awareness.
Hockey sense training was found to reduce injuries by 17%, and reduced concussions by over 25%. Before the implementation of IntelliGym, about 75% of USA Hockey players made injury-related visits to the doctor. But in 2010 and 2011, after the organization implemented the program for use in their National Teams, that number dropped to as low as 60%.
Off the ice, the use of this program saw an improvement in the players’ school grades and a decrease in the effects of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. This alone should be reason for teenage players to be using IntelliGym on a regular basis.
The IntelliGym software connects to the USA Hockey website, allowing both players and coaches to track the usage and performance of the program by members of the team, in addition to posting and tracking the players’ statistics – so you can watch your stats improve nearly linearly with your hockey sense.
The bottom line is that, although the IntelliGym has its critics and its minor flaws in gameplay, like any game, it is phenomenal and revolutionary technology that can be adapted for uses in all fields of life. As Dankner concluded to me in our conversation:
“The Hockey IntelliGym is based on a patented concept in a well-studied field, called ‘cognitive simulation’. It is based on the fact that simulating – cognitive wise – by extensively stimulating a similar combination of cognitive skills proves to transfer much better to the real environment than if training skill by skill. [The game] should not look like hockey, nor should it teach real hockey. It just needs to effectively simulate the same cognitive workload and combination on the brain.”
USA Hockey has shown with both its National Developmental Team Program and its performance at international tournaments, hockey sense is crucial in order to both improve play and decrease the probability of injury. And if IntelliGym can improve hockey sense, even slightly, then it’s well worth the price.
Alan Bass, a former writer for The Hockey News and THN.com, is the author of "The Great Expansion: The Ultimate Risk That Changed The NHL Forever." You can contact him at [email protected], or on Twitter at @NHL_AlanBass.
Editor's note: neither Alan bass or HockeyBuzz.com have been compensated for the above article
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