Topcorers everywhere thanks to virtual reality?

In just 15 minutes, training with a simulator enabled professional field hockey players to significantly improve their perceptive skills in front of the opposing net. This new approach, developed by researchers at the University of Fribourg’s Perception and Control Laboratory, enables players to better and more quickly identify the area of the goal least covered by the goalkeeper. These results were published in the journal Sports Medicine - Open in April 2025.

Alex Ovechkin and Wayne Gretzky have a lot to worry about. The two sharpest triggers in the history of the NHL, the prestigious North American ice hockey championship, could soon see their records surpassed by a new generation of players trained using virtual reality. Until now, methods for improving the performance of sportsmen and women, whatever their discipline, have focused primarily on physical fitness, technique and mental strength. However, other factors also play a significant role: "In team sports, perception and cognition are essential," explains Jean-Luc Bloechle, PhD in computer science and first author of the study. Athletes must quickly direct their attention, select information and make the most appropriate decision.’ Yet these perceptual and cognitive determinants have been less studied due to the difficulty of observing them, particularly in a sporting context. professor Jean-Pierre Bresciani, Director of the Control and Perception Laboratory at the University of Fribourg, points out: "The development of virtual reality and augmented reality has changed all that, and we have explored the fundamentally innovative training possibilities offered by these new technologies

Top-level players as guinea pigs

Under the supervision of David Aebischer, former NHL and Swiss national team goalkeeper and co-author of the study, the scientists first created a goalkeeper avatar. 34 professional players were then invited to challenge him. Equipped with a virtual reality headset, they tried to identify the least protected areas of the goal from different positions. to deceive the goalkeeper, the player must identify, as quickly and accurately as possible, what is known as the largest exposed zone, in other words, the part of the goal least protected by the goalkeeper", explains Jean-Luc Bloechle

The puck’s point of view

Simple in theory, but difficult in practice, because this space that eludes the goalkeeper’s mitt must be identified not from the player’s viewpoint, but from the puck’s! this ’detail’ is of the utmost importance," stresses Jean-Pierre Bresciani, "because we have observed that the greater the difference between the angle of vision of the eyes and that of the puck, the poorer the perceptive performance of the players. This need not be a foregone conclusion! Thanks to a virtual reality training protocol, the players were able to ’see with the eyes of the puck’. And the results are astonishing: tested on 34 professionals, the simulator improved their perceptive performance by 15% in a single session!

Technology for the future

this perceptual training using virtual reality has bridged the gap between the eyes and the puck", concludes Jean-Pierre Bresciani. According to the Fribourg researchers, such a result would hardly have been possible with traditional training methods. our study shows that it works even in highly trained professional athletes", adds Jean-Luc Bloechle. The future of field hockey - and perhaps top-level sport in general - may well lie in virtual reality.

Bloechle, JL., Audiffren, J., Sauthier, Q. et al. Perceptual Training in Ice Hockey: Bridging the Eyes-Puck Gap Using Virtual Reality. Sports Med - Open 11 , 38 (2025).