It’s been said that a player’s hockey sense is something that he or she is born with and not something you could teach.

Over the past decade, USA Hockey, in partnership with Applied Cognitive Engineering has helped more than 52,000 hockey players of all ages and skill levels to develop a greater hockey sense by forcing them to make quick decisions through the Hockey IntelliGym.

“It’s an interesting product, and what it’s trying to do is exercise the parts of your brain that are involved in making decisions on the ice,” said Ken Martel, technical director for USA Hockey’s American Development Model and a contributor to the software.

“One of the difficulties in our sport is the fact that you can’t be on the ice hundreds of hours,” Martel says. “There is no substitute for being at hockey practice or in a game for improving your hockey abilities including your hockey sense, but for another avenue, like going to the weight room, we thought exploring ways to improve that would be beneficial.”

Ongoing research continues to support that positives and real impacts that are being made on the ice as a result of integrating Hockey IntelliGym into weekly training sessions. In terms of how we can track the development of a player’s hockey sense, they are still many strides being made.

“Right now, our measurement for trying to quantify productivity and game intelligence is very difficult because all you can measure are outcomes, not how the outcome was derived,” Martel says.

“Sometimes the right decision doesn’t go well, but it was the right decision and you don’t get credit for that.”