Earlier this year, we had the pleasure of reporting on an intriguing cross-pollination between Canadian youth hockey and table tennis programs ("Net Gains," February 24). The result of a collaboration between Hockey NWT and Table Tennis North, the program was designed to give goalies an edge in reflexes and coordination through training on the table. The mash-up was the brainchild of Thorsten Gohl, who serves as executive director for Table Tennis North in the Northwest Territories (NWT). After watching a hockey game, watching the goalies deftly deflecting flying round objects with a flat stick, a light bulb lit up above Gohl's head: Why not offer a table tennis camp for hockey goalies? "When we pitched the idea to other people that are in hockey, they said, 'Yeah, why not? It's always beneficial to do extra things,'" recounted Gohl. The resultant camp invited goalies aged 9 to 15 to the six-week camp, where they were drilled on table tennis fundamentals. Back in those innocent days, the program was buoyed by hope. Now, there is some hard data to back it up, thanks to scientific analysis courtesy of the Sport Information Resource Centre. According to the Centre, participants' reaction time was 9.7% quicker, and overall hand-eye coordination shot up by over 20%. 14-year-old goalie Deacon Tybring, a veteran of the ping-pong training camp, saw immediate results. "It improved my overall hand-eye coordination quite a bit," he reported. The real proof, of course, is in the proverbial pudding. Could the young ping-pong prodigies prevent the passing of pucks? Indeed they could, increasing their saves by 15.8%. Some of the best improvements came via the more table tennis-like action of blocking shots with the gloves. "I saw the most changes like being able to get the puck in the glove, but being able to do it faster," recounted young goalie Tybring, "So being able to react quicker to certain shots that I maybe wouldn't have been able to do that quickly before." Building on the success of the program, Thorsten Gohl and Table Tennis NWT will offer the camp in new locations next year, and are even developing new technologies for virtual training. Soon, you may see professional goalies dropping the gloves for a new reason: The better to hold their ping-pong paddles.

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