Equipment and Apparatus

A regular hockey stick and the ASM REV3RSE hockey stick were used (Figures 1A,B). The reverse stick was provided by the experimenters, while the participants used their personal regular stick. There were two different lengths of the ASM reverse stick, which had a weight of 430 and 520 g. The children used an ASM reverse stick with the same length as their regular stick. The length of the hockey stick depends on the length of the child. The regular hockey sticks of the children were approximately the same weight as the ASM reverse stick (a maximum difference 20 g). The regular stick is rounded at the right face side, while for the reverse stick the left face side is rounded. Since the rules do not allow to contact the ball with the rounded side of the stick face, the two sticks require mirrored coordination pattern. That is, the regular stick requires players to handle it with the left hand on the upper part and the right hand on the lower part of the stick, while the reverse stick requires handling it with the right hand on the upper part and the left hand on the lower part. Notice that the reverse stick is new to the players, and that its use is prohibited in official matches.

A validated field hockey skills test was used that consisted of items assessing ball control and shooting skills (Mekel and Cremer, 2016; Brocken et al., 2020). The test is a track consisting of different skills that need to be performed as quickly as possible in a fixed order (see Figure 2). In the track, the child starts behind the black cones. When the child runs through the black cones, the time recording is initiated. First, a large slalom is performed (1), next the child runs to the second part of the track (2), where they run backwards with the ball. At (3), the child performs a figure eight around the cones. Lastly, the child tries to score a goal at (4). The main measure is the total time needed by the participant to complete the entire track, with the time recording being stopped the moment the ball passed the goal line. In the case the participant missed the goal, she must run across the goal line and then the time was stopped.

The field hockey skills track. Note that the cones represent cones 35 cm high and the circles represent cones 8 cm high. The rectangle is a 100 cm wide goal. Figure retrieved from Brocken et al. (2020).