In Part 1 of this article we considered how even at the NHL level there does still exist a fair bit of variety in skill quality from player to player.  Keep in mind, this statement is relative.  Almost all NHL players are pretty excellent with their physical skills.  However, the amount of variety in the techniques is still surprising given how good you have to be to get there.  So, if the physical skill set isn’t as consistent as we expect, is there some other skill area that is more important for selecting those players who will succeed at the NHL level from the rest of the population?  We determined that indeed, yes, there is a skill area that does this and it is mental pace of play.

One challenge with mental pace of play ability is that it is hard to measure.  As such, I can only say that both parts of this article reflect my opinion and that I am very confident in it.  I would also argue that the game itself measures this very effectively over a large enough series of games.  Those that emerge as highly successful players are almost never players who feel overwhelmed by the pace.  They are the ones who are most comfortable with the pace.

It is funny that many outsiders harbor the stereotype that Hockey players are not smart.  Yet, in order to be great, it is the mental game that sets players apart the most.  This does not seem to make sense. However, this makes more sense than we might think at first.  I have known a lot of players who struggle with the type of intelligence that makes school easier for some of us than others but are absolutely brilliant at processing strategy and making decisions on the ice. In other words, their brains have been trained to be experts at the on-ice chess match of the game of hockey.  This is a different kind of intelligence and it is often developed by simply having a lot of experience in high-paced read-and-react situations.

However, when we understand a few other concepts that underlie how the brain works to control the body in dynamic situations, we can extrapolate ways to prepare our nervous system (the brain as well as the nerves that propagate out into the body), to produce fast and accurate responses to rapidly changing challenges that emerge within the flow of the game.

In addition to this plan of “training” hockey athletes by giving them a large number of repetitions in high-paced read-and-react situations, we’ll focus on two other training methods to help support high mental pace of play. The first example is nothing new when it comes to training for any sport or other movement skills discipline.  It is physical skill repetition.  I’d suggest this seems counterintuitive.  We are talking about maximizing mental performance at pace and the prescription is more training of physical skill?

Yes!  If you have followed some of my past articles you likely can guess why.  To briefly summarize, our brain relies on an attentional spotlight to focus our conscious mental effort.  This spotlight has limited ability and as such can only really focus on one thing at a time.  So, if we have to think about how to move our body, we will have no room left think through the strategic and tactical options we have to help our team or hurt the efforts of the other team.

As a result, whenever we are at the high pace of play which the game of hockey always produces, we can’t operate our physical skills with any conscious control at all.  Instead we have to use unconscious (“automatic”) control.  The problem is that unless we have intensely trained for the movement in question, automatic control produces lower quality, lower efficiency movements.  To ensure we can produce high quality movements at the pace of hockey we have to extensively train these movements to build a high quality automatic program.

Another important thing that players need to learn is when they can slow the game down.  The opportunity to do this mostly comes when you have the puck.  We discussed in the last article how Wayne Gretzky likely had a better mental pace of play than any other player to ever play the game.  He was also a master of finding more time and space.  Lets look at three of his best strategies to do this.

1. Use the perimeter of the ice - other teams must work to position themselves between your team and the net.  This is especially true specifically for defending the puck carrier.  This means that there will almost always be space available to the perimeter of the ice that can be used as refuge when an easy offensive play isn’t available.
2. Use tight turns to separate yourself from the defender – the classic example of a tight turn to buy time and space is the sidewall “escape” toward the boards just after entering the offensive zone.  In this example and all examples of using a tight turn to earn time and space, it is important to turn aggressively away from the defender while protecting the puck.
3. Wayne Gretzky’s “office” - Wayne used to set up behind the other team’s net which forced them to choose to attack him from one side or the other, or use two guys to attack him at once.  Often, none of those seemed like good options so they would let him delay back there until a good option opened up.

Note, that for these to really work at the pace of the highest levels of the game, these reactions have to also be trained into what are effectively instinctive reflexes.  Using tactics to buy time and space are also a matter of practice.

As we have discussed, time and space are critical commodities in the game of hockey.  How we use time and space is critical as well.  Finding ways to earn more time and space are a massive help, but simply being able to comfortably operate at the highest pace of play the game can offer is a massive advantage…one that separates great players from good players all the way up to the highest levels of the game.