During a previous Hockey Canada Skills Academy Seminar, I had the opportunity to meet some interesting people from all sorts of impressive hockey backgrounds. One of which, was Maxime Provencher.

Maxime currently works with the QMJHL’s Rimouski Oceanic, as well as SciencePerfo, an innovative company that focuses on the minute details of our beloved sport.

For those who aren’t familiar with SciencePerfo, they are a team of sport-specialized scientists that study the biomechanical aspects of hockey. Ultimately, their goal is to analyze hockey specific movements, offer their expertise in training with a scientific approach and to offer advice on how to propel an athlete’s performance to the next level.

Using state of the art technology, and having a profound knowledge of biomechanics, Maxime and his colleagues are able to measure body positioning, speeds and articulations with precision.

On May 16, Maxime came to visit our group in Abrams Village, P.E.I, in order to showcase their innovative technology.

During his visit, each student had the opportunity to get a biomechanical analysis of their skating stride, while doing a 30m sprint test. Through the use of radars, censors and high speed cameras that fed information into a proprietary software over 50 times per second, our students were able to get a precise reading into the areas of their stride needing improvement. After the fact, each individual received graphs, charts and exercises specific to their skating profile. It was a terrific opportunity for the students in our program to get a glimpse into the high-end technology that is used (or will be used) by the best in the world.