In just 15 minutes, training with a simulator allowed professional hockey players to significantly improve their perceptual abilities in front of the opposing team’s net. Developed by researchers at the University of Fribourg’s Control and Perception Laboratory, the new approach enables players to identify better and more quickly the zone of the goal that is the least protected by the goaltender. The results were published in the journal Sports Medicine – Open in April 2025.

Alex Ovechkin and Wayne Gretzky might want to start worrying. The two finest shots in the history of the NHL, North America’s ice hockey league of course, may be facing the risk of seeing their records broken by a new generation of players that will incorporate virtual reality in their training. Until now training programs to improve athletes’ performance in their chosen sport essentially concentrated on their physical condition, technique, and mental focus. But other factors play a preponderant role, it seems. “In team sports, perception and cognition are essential,” Jean-Luc Bloechle, Doctor of Computer Science and the lead author of the study, explained. “Athletes must quickly direct their attention, select information, and make the most appropriate decision.” Up until recently, researchers had paid less attention to cognitive and perceptual determinants because of the difficulty of observing them, especially in the context of sports. As Professor Jean-Pierre Bresciani, the director of the University of Fribourg’s Control and Perception Laboratory, pointed out, “The development of virtual reality and augmented reality has been a game changer all the same, and we have explored the fundamentally innovative possibilities for training that these new technologies present.”

Elite players as guinea pigs
The former NHL goaltender and player on Switzerland’s own national team, and coauthor of the study, David Aebischer oversaw the UniFri scientists’ research in the fast-paced sport. First they created a goaltender avatar. Thirty-four professional players were then invited to play against it. Wearing a virtual reality headset, the ice hockey pros tried to identify the least defended zones of the net from different places. “To get around the last defense, the player has to identify as quickly and precisely as possible what we call the most exposed zone, in other words the part of the goal that is the least defended by the goaltender,” Dr. Bloechle explained.

The puck’s point of view
This is simple in theory but hard in practice since the space that the goalie’s glove isn’t covering has to be identified, not from the player’s viewpoint, but from the puck’s! As Prof. Bresciani stressed, “That ‘detail’ is of the highest importance because we have observed that the greater the difference between the viewing angle of the eyes and the puck, the worse the perceptual performances of the players.” That outcome is not a foregone conclusion though. Thanks to a virtual-reality training protocol, players were able to “see with the eyes of the puck.” The results were surprising. Tested on 34 professional players, the simulator enabled them to improve their perceptual performance by 15 % in just one session!

Technology of the future
“This perception training with the help of virtual reality made it possible to overcome the gap between the eyes and the puck,” Prof. Bresciani concluded. According to the UniFri researchers, such a result would be difficult to imagine with traditional training methods. Dr. Bloechle added, “And our study demonstrates that it works even with professional athletes who are already highly trained.” The future of ice hockey – and maybe high-level sports in general – could well include strapping on a virtual reality headset.

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).