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Very
Superstitious
By Maureen
Mullen
Always the
right skate first, then the left. Always the left skate first, then the
right. Last one out of the locker room. Always white tape on the stick
blade. Pack the equipment bag, unpack it, repack it. Favorite old T-shirt
under the uniform.
Call them
what you will — superstitions, rituals, routines. They’ve been
a part of hockey since there has been ice. Some players swear by them,
some won’t talk about them. But, do they work? Do they enhance performance?
"A ritual
or superstition really doesn’t affect your performance," said
Bob Deraney, women’s head coach at Providence College. "It does
affect your state of mind. All athletes have their rituals, and I think
they’re good things because it helps them find that zone they need
to be in."
Andria Hunter,
who recently retired from the NWHL, was a member of Canada’s world
champion national teams in 1992 and ‘94 and is a member of the 2002
national in-line team, takes a pragmatic approach to routines and superstitions.
"Hockey
players are very superstitious, whether we know it or not," said
Hunter, who admitted to having a few superstitions, including wearing
her favorite raggedy tank top under her uniform. "The superstitions
and rituals probably don’t make a difference, but it’s a frame-of-mind
thing."
Katie King,
a forward on the US national team, is among the many who employ the dressing-order
routine.
"One
time I put my right skate on before my left skate, and I was like "Whoa,
this feels really weird," she said. "So, I took them both off
and put them on again."
King recognizes
that, while she knows the order in which she gets dressed won’t affect
her performance, it helps her get ready for the competition.
"I know
it won’t really change the way I play," said King, who also
likes to touch one of the posts and the back of the net at the start of
each period. "It just helps me prepare and focus on the game."
Kerstin Matthews,
who played for Deraney at PC and now coaches at Westford (MA) Academy
and operates a hockey school in Massachusetts, follows a similar approach.
"I know
most of them are silly," she said. "But, it’s a mindset.
It puts you where you need to be to get focused."
Matthews
admits to using several rituals to help her find her zone. At one point,
she said, she played one of the best games of her career when she could
hear her stomach growling from hunger. From then on, if she didn’t
go into a game with a boisterous belly, she didn’t feel confident
that she would play well.
"I know
there’s probably no relationship," she said. "But, for
me, it was a mental focus that was now part of something. You become very
superstitious."
Even athletes
who don’t have individual superstitions or routines may still take
part in team rituals. Canadian national team forward Cherie Piper, although
she doesn’t have any of her own superstitions, recognizes that routines
can help a team get ready for competition.
"Routines
can help them prepare psychologically," she said. "If they’re
doing different things, they might feel as though they’re not well
prepared."
"I had
a teammate who carried a stuffed animal frog in her equipment bag,"
said King. "Before every game the frog came out of the bag and got
passed around so everyone could pat it and then it went back in the bag."
Peter Haberl,
a sports psychologist for the USOC assigned to the women’s hockey
team, draws a distinction between rituals or routines and superstitions.
"A routine
or ritual", said Haberl, "is something within an athlete’s
control — putting the left skate on first. A superstition is something
out of the athlete’s control — the need to be the last one onto
the ice or the belief that performance will be affected by the day of
the week."
"In
any sporting event, the outcome is uncertain," Haberl explained.
"That uncertainty can produce anxiety in the athlete, which can be
detrimental to the performance. So, often the superstitions and the rituals
are steps to control the uncontrollable. The problem with superstitions
is that it’s not under the athlete’s control."
Haberl sees
no substantial difference between male and female athletes in their routines
or superstitions.
"I don’t
think so," he said. "They might be different in the rituals
or superstitions they choose, but not in their
purpose."
Haberl encourages
the athletes with whom he works to have rituals, but he discourages superstitions.
To maintain control over superstitions, Haberl tries to get his athletes
to convert them into rituals and to understand that superstitions have
no benefits, but rituals can.
For the player
who needs to be the last one onto the ice — what if there’s
more than one on a team? — or those who dislike playing on Wednesdays,
yet prefer Tuesdays, Haberl takes a scientific approach.
"Science
can be a very powerful tool then," Haberl said. "I show them
the logical data [of past performance on Wednesdays or when they’re
not the last one onto the ice] that shows there’s no foundation for
that superstition. Logical data works for most athletes."
But what
about the players who believe their performance is positively affected
on Tuesdays, for example?
"I wouldn’t
do anything to change it while it works," Haberl said. "But
the moment it stops working you want them to realize that [the superstition]
has nothing to do with their performance."
Until then,
keep those old T-shirts handy.
Maureen Mullen
is a freelance writer in
Boston.
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