Influence of the Indoor Hockey “Push & Flick” Methodology on the Ball Speed During the Penalty Corner Shooting

Abstract

AbstractIndoor hockey is an official non-Olympic discipline, regulated by International Hockey Federation (FIH), practiced in a hall with a handball size pitch. The main objective of the game is a victory achieved by marking more goals than the opponent. The format of the game was created in the 1950s and 1960s. Later, in 1966, the first Indoor hockey rules were published. In 1968, the World Headquarters officially recognized the discipline as an integral part of hockey.The penalty corner is one of the most important game situations in hockey (both outdoor and indoor field hockey) with 40% of all goals resulting from this tactical situation. This number may reach 46% or even 68%.The aim of this paper is to study the influence of the indoor hockey “Push & Flick” methodology on the ball speed improvement during the penalty corner shooting in the potentially effective goal zones. Using variation analysis and InterCriteria Analysis the research team has sought to establish values and possible relations and dependencies between indicators reflecting the ball speed of zone shooting.Four elite indoor hockey players from the team of the National Sports Academy in Bulgaria, participants in the European Indoor Hockey Clubs Challenge, have been involved in the experiment. According to the requirements of the experimental “Push & Flick” methodology, the duration of the specialized training has been set to 16 weeks. Each player has performed 4,800 shootings, or approximately 300 shootings each week. Tests have been carried out at the beginning (the first week) and at the end (the sixteenth week) of the experiment in order to determine the speed of the ball during the shooting – push/flick from a penalty corner spot (9 m, central from the goal line).The speed of the ball has been measured with a sports radar Ra-Vid Pro Sport™ (Accuracy: ±0.1 km/h, Speed range: 1–480 km/h, Stopwatch within 1/100 s, 10 m sec acquisition time, 12-degree radar beam, 1200 to 38.4 K baud, Available in mph or km/h, Maximum Range, Sports: 400–500 ft., Autos: 1.75 miles) located just behind the net and the corresponding shooting areas.This report will demonstrate the effectiveness of the specialized methodologies related to the preparation of penalty corners “specialists”. In addition, InterCriteria Analysis applied for processing the data reveals important dependencies related to the refinement of the technique of pushing and flicking.KeywordsFlickIndoor hockeyPenalty cornerSpeedShootingInterCriteria analysis