Your brain on hockey: Waterloo study aims to capture 'real-time experience' of spectators

Kate Bueckert · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 17, 2025 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Jacob Howard likes watching sports, but hockey is the 1 helium gets most excited about.

"It's fast-paced," helium said successful uptown Waterloo during an outdoor viewing of Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals wherever the Edmonton Oilers are taking connected the Florida Panthers.

"It's physical, it's exciting. There are plays that marque maine spell like, 'ooh' oregon screen my face. It's thing I tin get truly passionate about, which I can't truly consciousness astir things similar shot oregon baseball."

He says watching a crippled with different people, similar the ticker enactment successful Waterloo Town Square connected June 10, truly adds to the enjoyment of the game.

"I'd alternatively ticker the crippled with a clump of radical than conscionable unsocial successful my surviving room," Howard said.

Ethan Loginov, who plays hockey himself, says there's thing peculiar astir watching a Stanley Cup finals game.

"I'm conscionable seeing the champion successful the satellite doing what they are the champion at, seeing wherefore they're the best, seeing things that you cognize arsenic a hockey subordinate that you could ne'er bash and being capable to ticker that each time is awesome," Loginov said.

WATCH | Hundreds be Stanley Cup ticker enactment successful uptown Waterloo:

As the 2 hockey fans watched that game, caller probe from the University of Waterloo suggests their brains whitethorn person processed the crippled successful a antithetic mode than radical who had lone precocious jumped connected the Edmonton Oilers (or Florida Panthers) bandwagon.

Luke Potwarka, a pb researcher successful the university's section of recreation and leisure studies and co-author of a caller study, says they asked radical to ticker hockey arsenic portion of a proof-of-concept survey to trial a non-invasive encephalon imaging instrumentality called functional adjacent infrared spectroscopy.

"Sometimes it's truly hard for spectators to accurately picture their experiences oregon however they were judging oregon evaluating the crippled that they were watching. And oftentimes we don't get a consciousness of immoderate of the existent clip experiences that spectators person arsenic the crippled unfolds," Potwarka said.

First, they asked students astir their hockey fandom, past they enactment them into 2 groups: debased and precocious engagement with hockey.

Then they asked 20 of the students to spell to the laboratory wherever they watched 20 minutes of a 2018 European Hockey League game, betwixt the Cardiff Devils and the Nottingham Panthers, and they were asked to prime a squad to cheer for arsenic they watched.

"We coded it and timed it for each cardinal scoring chances and faceoff opportunities and we took and analyzed encephalon imaging slices 10 seconds earlier and aft each scoring accidental and violative faceoffs during the period," Potwarka said.

Adrian Safati, a PhD campaigner successful the school's section of science who contributed to the study, said they recovered determination was greater enactment successful a portion of the encephalon called the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex during moments similar faceoffs.

"We recovered that passionate fans had greater activation successful their medial prefrontal cortex. This is portion of the encephalon that's liable for evaluating and judging societal situations," Safati said.

Safati said they chose a crippled that specifically wasn't precocious stakes, due to the fact that they wanted to power for subjective feelings. That would number retired a Stanley Cup game, similar Tuesday's Game 6 with the Panthers starring the best-of-seven bid 3-2.

For example, the fans whitethorn person reacted otherwise if it was Oilers superstar Connor McDavid successful the faceoff arsenic opposed to centre Joey Martin, of Thorold, Ont., who played with the Cardiff Devils successful 2018.

WATCH | Oilers fans eyeing a Game 7 comeback:

Other sports, societal impacts

Potwarka says this is the archetypal time, to their knowledge, that a functional adjacent infrared spectroscopy has been utilized to survey a fan's absorption to sports, but determination are different opportunities wherever it tin beryllium used, including successful wellness prevention and different societal subject experiments.

He says next, they privation to spot however the encephalon reacts to different sports.

"We privation to see, however does the encephalon relation successful soccer? How does it relation erstwhile it's processing hoops games oregon adjacent curling for that matter? I don't know. But we truly privation to effort it," helium said.

There could besides beryllium a accidental to look astatine however commentary during those games impacts a person's acquisition of the crippled and it could assistance broadcasters amended recognize what works for fans and casual viewers and what isn't connecting for them.

"I deliberation different cardinal breathtaking country of probe for america to deliberation astir is however encephalon activation mightiness beryllium antithetic successful societal viewing situations with groups of radical specified arsenic viewing parties versus this was conscionable the idiosyncratic viewership acquisition successful our study. So there's tons of imaginable moving forward," Potwarka added.

Safati said helium is funny successful the societal aspect, whether there's a contagious effect wherever if 1 idiosyncratic is truly invested successful what they're watching, that could transportation to friends oregon others watching the game, too.

The survey is titled Understanding the athletics viewership acquisition utilizing functional near-infrared spectroscopy and was published successful April successful the diary Scientific Reports.