Title: The relationship between on-ice acceleration and maximum velocity in collegiate ice-hockey players.
Supervisors: Dr. Michael Koehle, Dr. Darren Warburton
Committee members: Dr. Kevin Neeld, Dr. Jack Taunton
Abstract: Ice hockey is a contact team sport that involves many athletic qualities including the expression of speed. Speed is particularly important as it is frequently required in competition, particularly in short, acceleration-based distances. In overground sprinting, a strong relationship is demonstrated between acceleration and maximum velocity (MaxV), and recent literature evaluating this relationship as a ratio of acceleration-MaxV has proposed a ceiling effect on acceleration mediated by MaxV. No such literature exists in ice hockey with skating, and with many significant biomechanical and equipment differences between overground sprinting and skating, this relationship cannot be predicted. The proposed study aims to investigate the relationship between on-ice acceleration and maximum velocity in collegiate ice hockey players, compare this to previous literature in overground sprinting, and perform a gender comparison between male and female ice hockey players.