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Ice Hockey Research Paper

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As one of the top four professional games in the United States and Canada, ice hockey is very prominent in North America. Ice hockey athletes are required to be proficient in muscle power and speed while maintaining balance and flexibility in order to respond to on-ice movements and opposing players. As a result, players must have the muscular strength, power, flexibility, and balance to response to these challenges (Potteiger, Smith, Maier, & Foster, 2010). Player position is also a factor in athlete performance due to the specific need of each position. While forwards and defenseman have minor differences between their playtime and the characteristics of their positions, goalies are vastly different in terms of their presence and importance …show more content…

In addition, the stress placed on players requires a large, lean body mass and exceptional muscular strength in order to adapt to the physical nature of ice hockey (Cox, Miles, Verde, & Rhodes, 1995). Therefore, it is essential for ice hockey players to be well conditioned to adhere to the challenges their sport provides. Furthermore, it is important for players to use training programs that rely on increasing speed, agility, flexibility and fitness while maintaining strength and power. However, many ice hockey players tend to use programs that do not acknowledge their exact needs. Although the necessity for a training program that accommodates ice hockey players to the specific needs of the game is evident among researchers, little research is done that specifies the exact needs of the athletes to exceed competition in ice …show more content…

Values are expressed as mean ± SD.
By identifying an ice hockey player’s fitness level, VO2 max values, lactate threshold and anthropometric physiology, improvements can be made to the athlete’s physical performance.
Activity Analysis:
Ice hockey is identified with high-intensity sporadic skating, quick changes in directions and velocity, and frequent full-body contact (Lee, Lee, & Yoo, 2014). At the collegiate level, game play consists of about 30 to 60 seconds of intense moments of play, rotated between four forward lines, or groups of players, and three defense pairs for about sixty minutes of play. The period of play is broken down into 20 minutes of game time follow by two 15 minutes intermissions of rest (Cox, Miles, Verde, & Rhodes, 1995). The amount of time players receive during a game is determined by their skill set, physical ability and experience. Players with higher skills or physical abilities and have more experience usually will receive more ice time than those who are still developing these skills. Thus, the need for improvement is prominent among hockey

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