Position-based anthropometric characteristics and general physiological performance of national level, U18 ice hockey players

Abstract

Identifying talented players requires subjective, as well as objective assessments of playing ability and performance. The assessment of anthropometric characteristics, as well as general physiological performance can be used for player selection. The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether positional profiling is possible for national level ice hockey players by examining anthropometric characteristics and physiological performance. The study involved two ice-hockey teams, U18 and U23, in total of 49 athletes (32 forwards and 17 defensemen), members of the “Székelyföldi” Ice Hockey Academy (SZJA). Data collection was conducted in May 2020, at the SZJAs Medical and Methodological Center. Body height was determined including barefoot height (± 0.1 cm) using a wall mounted stadiometer. Body weight was measured with a standard scale. A standard incremental maximal oxygen uptake test was conducted in the laboratory by means of open-circuit spirometry and computerized instrumentation (CPET Cosmed, Italy) following the Bruce protocol. With the use of the descriptive statistics, we found no differences at the anthropometric characteristics between forwards and defensemen. Regarding the physiological characteristics, some possible differences were found for maximal- and absolute oxygen uptake rate. While our results from descriptive statistics show no significant differences between the two studied ice hockey position, based on the Mann-Whitney U test, considering all parameter values, we found that there were significant differences between the two groups within this sample number.

Perceived competence in ice hockey and its associations with relative age, early sport specialization, and players’ position

“…In the past, defenders were shown to be generally taller, heavier and more powerful in terms of upper-body muscles, while forwards were smaller, faster and more agile ( Geithner et al, 2006 ; Kutáč and Sigmund, 2015 ). However, a recent study of non-professional ice hockey players aged 17 to 23 reported no significant anthropometric differences between forwards and defenders ( Czont et al, 2023 ). Technically, there are important differences in the way forwards and defenders move around the rink; forwards make more quick turns, accelerate and move more often at high speed, while defenders spend more of their time skating backwards and must often change direction ( Montgomery et al, 2004 ).…”