Eye-Tracking Tech For Hockey Goalies Aims To Learn How They Think


For many years, hockey coaches have known that goaltenders focus on numerous moving objects while the opposing offense passes the puck from player to player. They surmised that the best goaltenders seamlessly switch from a focused, central vision to peripheral vision and back again. Instead of speculating from afar about a goalie’s vision and thought process, William Rahm, the goalie coach for Swedish Hockey League’s HV71, uses eye-tracking technology to analyze his goalies’ eye movements directly from their perspective.

“The most interesting results so far are to actually see what we think we know about how goaltenders process the game,” Rahm wrote to SportTechie in an email. “It makes it super easy and efficient to have the same ‘picture’ as the goalie and to learn what type of information he/she uses to make decisions.”

As goalies shift their angle with the rotating puck, they have to be aware of every player’s movement. Is the player receiving the puck going to take a quick slap shot? Or try a pass to a diving teammate for a possible deflection? Goalies have to be conscious of all the possibilities, and any decision begins with what they see.

“On isolated shooters, goalies tested so far seem to put isolated focus on the stick blade and puck from shot release to fully completed save,” Rahm explained. “In screened situations, the goalie uses peripheral vision to keep sight on the shooter and puck but also focus on players driving the net to calculate the line of the puck in case of a deflection.”

 

The eye-tracking technology that Rahm uses is provided by Tobii, a Swedish-based company that has partnerships with entities in both esports and traditional sports. Tobii’s first hurdle to solve for Rahm: fitting the camera inside the goalie’s helmet.

“One of the things that always stood in the way [of eye-tracking tech in sports] was the computing power and size of camera,” said Mike Bartels, a Senior Research Director at Tobii Pro Insight. “There were wearable eye trackers years ago but they were clunky and attached to a computer so they didn’t allow for a natural human experience.”

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The importance for an athlete to feel natural can’t be understated. Even if the eye tracking is accurate, if the player is acting in a different way, because they are wearing the hardware, then all the data received is skewed.

“The question we ask ourselves is ‘How realistic is this interaction?’” Bartels said. “That’s what Tobii is driving towards: creating accurate collections of attention data in a realistic context.”

Data regarding where a player is looking is valuable information in and of itself. But it begins to approach an even higher level of analytics: using data to determine what a player is thinking.

“This is almost the final frontier in this type of research. You are literally seeing the game through the eyes of your player,” Bartels said. “When you are using this type of tech, it is like having a direct link to the cognitive process of the player that isn’t available through any other tool. Even if you talked to the player, they probably can’t describe what they are doing or thinking on a second-by-second basis.”

Suggested further reading:

Eye Tracking Shows Where ELEAGUE Gamers Look On The Screen

NFL Uses Eye-Tracking Technology To Study How Fans Watch Games