Brainstorm

Growing up, I was a hockey fanatic, and did my best to follow some of my favorite players and apply some of their everyday habits to my game. This is when I discovered the popular phenomena around many NHL locker rooms influencing some of the greats of our generation from all sports, the art of superstition. At first, I was a little bit unsure at what exactly a superstition was, but of course as curious as a little boy loving hockey could be, I wanted to do more. A superstition is best described as something an athlete does before, during, or even after a game that gives them the ability or the mental impression that they will perform better. There seems to be a lot of negative annotations around sport superstitions, for the simple fact that people believe that they are non-sense and have no advantage whatsoever on performance. There are mental advantages beyond belief that these athletes experience when they follow their superstitions and in contrary have severe performance consequences when they don’t. An important beginning to the discussion of superstition is to figure out what to classify as. In my experience, I have found that superstition is sometimes synonymous to words like traditions and rituals. To clear up this little misconception, a superstition is much more severe than the two previously mentioned, because of how much it affects the performance of an athlete. There is an important distinction that must be made between these two because each athlete follows a different definition of their routines. Some athletes would insist on calling them superstitions because they believe they need to do it in order to perform. While other athletes are often creeped out by superstition and insist it simply just part of their routine. Either way they make for a vital part of any sports team and need to be talked about. There’s one example that comes to mind immediately when thinking about this however I am not sure whether or not he classifies this as a superstition or simply just something that is part of his routine. Connor Hellebuyck, goaltender of the Winnipeg Jets goes to games hours in advance and simply sits on the bench while vigorously moving his eyes from one side of the ice to the other. I can’t say for sure, but it seems to be him trying to focus on what he’s going to do in the game and really elevate his concentration levels to a whole other level. There has not been a single game that Connor Hellebuyck has played where he hasn’t done this little routine at the very beginning of games. What must be mentioned is some players are actually bothered by some of the superstition’s others have, because it may be annoying or affects other people’s routines that are not necessarily following a strict superstition. This can be done when perhaps someone is upset that they had their equipment moved when it has to be in a specific spot and not only does it throw off their game but it creates conflict between the two players.