Ice hockey is undeniably one of the quickest sports where coaches currently rely heavily on on-ice drills with players to maximize their game intelligence, reflexes and performance. A company from the Czech Republic, SenseArena, is looking to help young players develop their skills, through a dedicate virtual reality training program.
It has created what it is calling the Sense Arena Training Platform (SATP). The set of training programs focuses on the development of a young athlete’s cognitive skills, such as reaction times and spatial perception which can influence the decision-making process. It seeks to develop actual physical skills, such as coordination, rhythm and link them up. And the program is based on situational training to improve “hockey sense.”
All this training takes place in VR, with a player using a headset, while also having a lightweight monitoring device attached to the hockey stick. This device is able to understand if a player has received or passed the puck. Performance data is all recorded and can be accessed from the SATP by coaches to assess and measure a young player’s development.
“We focus our program on the training of the ‘brain muscles’ of athletes starting at the age of 10,” SenseArena founder Bob Tetiva said in a promotional video. “We strongly believe that synchronized development of their physical and mental skills will make them better.”
The founders are at pains to say that this program is not a simple game, but a more educational training tool for those young athletes looking to improve their game.
Dr. Filip Pesan, who is currently head coach of the U20 Czech national hockey team, as well as a consultant to SenseArena said: “I see VR as a fantastic opportunity to speed up and influence the development of young hockey players. It is a serious training program.”
To date, the company has secured a number of prominent partnerships in its homeland, including with the Czech Ice Hockey Association, Prague’s Charles University and also professional ice hockey team, the Liberec White Tigers. Most recently, it also exhibited at CES 2018 in Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, SenseArena also plans to expand its training program beyond ice hockey, with basketball, and football likely next for the firm in the near future.