Yes that is one comparison (chess to hockey) which might work if it helps you to think of it in that way. However, chess rating (even 1500 chess.com rating) likely also takes more than just planning. Chess has something called "pattern recognition" and this skill can be honed by solving chess puzzles routinely and by gaining experience from games you learn from.
Chess has so many possibilities that it isn't realistic to memorize them all (or even modern computers to calculate them all!), so the ability to recognize certain patterns and themes in a given position might give clues on how to find good moves. These "clues" could be in the form of pawn structure, piece development, the coordination of certain pawns to pieces, chess opening principles, theoretical endgames and so on.
Hockey doesn't have an equivalent to pattern recognition which I can think of, but yes there is a learning curve to many things and chess or Hockey are no different 
Am I right thinking that chess is like hockey.
I mean, when one begins to play hockey, he has to learn to skate, forward then backward, then how to use the stick and the tricks that exist with it, then the rules, learn to play as a team player, pratice a lot.
When he reaches a high level, the player has to learn different plans for different situations during a game, it's not the free for all anymore. During a penality, there is a plan; during a power play, there is another plan.
I am following some masters on YouTube who explain opening theory and what comes out of it is that they don't just play the first moves. In fact, I can see they have learned a lot of variations so that they can go far beyond the opening, aiming often toward the end of the game.
I can see that I basically don't have a game plan when reaching the middle game, it's more good luck to find good tactics to overcome my opponent.
So, is that right that a chess player must study deeper game plans to bypass the 1500 toward mastery?