Comparisons of player calibers and skate models during an ice hockey explosive transitional maneuver By: Samuel Forget Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada December, 2013 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the degree of Masters of Science © Samuel Forget, 2013 II Acknowledgements I would like to thank God, my whole family, and friends for all their support. I would also like to thank my two supervisors, Dr. René A. Turcotte and Dr. David J. Pearsall and of course our laboratory technician Yannick Paquette for their precious advice throughout my two years spent at McGill. I would also like to thank the Bauer Hockey Company, NSERC and the McGill University for their material and financial support. The last but not the least, I would like to thank my colleagues, Charles (Marc), Robert (Cam), Leo, Lisa, Ryan, Chau, Andrew, Philippe and Lasse and the numerous undergrad students for their help and for all the great memories that they provided! Merci à tous pour les beaux souvenirs que je garderai à jamais de mes deux années à McGill! III Table of Contents Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... III List of Tables .................................................................................................................. V List of Figures ................................................................................................................ VI Abstract ....................................................................................................................... VIII Résumé ......................................................................................................................... IX Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Thesis outline ....................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Rationale .............................................................................................................. 2 1.3 Objective .............................................................................................................. 7 1.4 Hypotheses .......................................................................................................... 8 1.5 Operational definitions .......................................................................................... 9 1.6 Limitations .......................................................................................................... 12 1.7 Delimitations ....................................................................................................... 13 1.8 Contribution to the Field ...................................................................................... 13 Chapter 2: Review of Literature .................................................................................... 14 2.1 History of ice skating and the game of ice hockey ............................................... 14 2.2 Classification of skills in ice hockey ..................................................................... 15 2.3 Skating in ice hockey .......................................................................................... 16 2.4 Kinematics of the skating stride .......................................................................... 17 2.5 Observed ground reaction forces during forward skating ..................................... 25 2.6 The effect of skate design on the skating kinetics ................................................ 29 2.7 Modified ice hockey skate; recent studies ........................................................... 30 2.8 Plantar pressure in gait analysis ......................................................................... 34 2.9 Motor skill acquisition; expert versus novice ........................................................ 38 Chapter 3: Methods ...................................................................................................... 45 3.1 Participants ........................................................................................................ 45 3.2 Materials ............................................................................................................ 47 3.3 Experimental setup ............................................................................................. 49 3.4 Experimental protocol ......................................................................................... 50 3.5 Research design ................................................................................................ 52 3.6 Data acquisition, processing and analysis ........................................................... 56 Chapter 4: Results ........................................................................................................ 61 4.1 Stop phase ......................................................................................................... 61 4.1.1 Foot region kinetics.......................................................................................... 61 4.1.2 Center of pressure ........................................................................................... 63 IV 4.1.3 Kinetics and time measures ............................................................................. 66 4.2 Go phase ........................................................................................................... 69 4.2.1 Foot region kinetics.......................................................................................... 69 4.2.2 Center of pressure ........................................................................................... 71 4.2.3 Kinetics and time measures ............................................................................. 73 Chapter 5: Discussion................................................................................................... 79 5.1 Stop: Level of expertise differences (high versus low caliber) .............................. 80 5.2 Go: Level of expertise differences (high versus low caliber) ................................ 87 5.3 Stop: Skate design differences (regular versus modified) .................................... 90 5.4 Go: Skate design differences (regular versus modified)....................................... 92 5.5 Future directions ................................................................................................. 94 5.6 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 95 Appendix I .................................................................................................................. 108 Appendix II ................................................................................................................. 112 V List of Tables Table 1: Demographic information of the participants. ............................................................................ 46 Table 2: List of the independent and dependent variables. ..................................................................... 53 Table 3: Descriptive statistics of the stop phase foot region variables. .................................................... 63 Table 4: Descriptive statistics of the stop phase center of pressure variables. ........................................ 65 Table 5: Descriptive statistics of the stop phase kinetics variables. ......................................................... 68 Table 6: Descriptive statistics of the stop phase time measure variable. ................................................. 69 Table 7: Descriptive statistics of the go phase foot region variables........................................................ 70 Table 8: Descriptive statistics of the go phase center of pressure variables. ........................................... 73 Table 9: Descriptive statistics of the go phase kinetics variables. ........................................................... 76 Table 10: Descriptive statistics of the go phase time measure variable. .................................................. 78 VI List of Figures Figure 1: Blade position during full leg extension push off phase of a long track speed skater skating with Klapskates (adapted from http://totallycoolpix.com/2012/01/coolest-sports-pix-of-2012-week-02/). ........... 6 Figure 2: Structural components of a regular hockey skate (adapted from Pearsall and Turcotte, 2007). 12 Figure 3: Classification of skating skills (adapted from Pearsall et al., 2000). .......................................... 16 Figure 4: Ankle kinematics during forward skating: A) Plantar and dorsi flexion. B) Inversion and eversion (adapted from Pearsall et al., 2001). ...................................................................................................... 23 Figure 5: Kinetics of a participant for the right skate, including contact time and stride time information (adapted from Stidwill, 2009). ................................................................................................................ 27 Figure 6: Representation of the resultant force and vertical and horizontal components at push-off (adapted from Pearsall et al., 2007). ...................................................................................................... 29 Figure 7: Representation of the Klapskate allowing