Intangibles
by Hawerchuk on Apr 24, 2010 3:38 PM EDT
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PrintThere has been a lot of discussion here of 'intangibles' over the last few days. For the record, I do not dispute the role intangibles play in world-class athletics. Becoming a professional athlete requires a level of discipline and commitment to your craft that the vast majority of us lack. By the time a player is playing a regular shift in the NHL, he has played against a huge number of players who were older, bigger, stronger and better than him. He has played in pressure-packed playoff games and has often competed at the international level. Of the thousands of players who enter junior hockey every year, he's one of the 20 or so best.
And yet, after that level of perseverance, people say things like:
“Absolutely a professional athlete can have issues with mental preparedness for a playoff situation among other aspects within his game…The Sharks have suffered from ghosts of playoffs past, and being outplayed by another eight-seeded team affected their psyches.”
Anybody who believes this...I want you to think about what you're saying.
You are telling me that a group of professional athletes who spend 1000 hours per year on the ice and probably another 1000 in the gym and get paid millions of dollars a year…are so fragile that having a low shooting percentage for a few games destroys them psychologically?
You are telling me that an organization with four cup-winning defensemen (Boyle, Blake, Huskins, Wallin), a guy who played in the finals (Heatley), four guys who won Olympic gold (Thornton, Marleau, Heatley, Boyle) and one who won Olympic silver (Pavelski), and that averaged 109 points over the last four years, is incapable of dealing with a low shooting percentage when the game is tied? (Though not when they're down one goal.)
You are telling me that Todd McLellan, who came from an organization that won the cup, and Doug Wilson, who has assembled a team that could have won its division in each of the last five seasons, are incapable of taking a group of professional athletes and making them mentally ready for a playoff game? And that Wilson, faced with a team that was supposedly psychologically fragile in 07-08 and 08-09, did nothing in 2009-10 to improve the team in this regard?
In other words, you think that Wilson, McLellan, Thornton, Marleau, Heatley, Boyle, Nabokov, Pavelski and all of the not-quite-star Sharks are such amateurs that they have repeatedly failed to address the need to achieve peak performance in their games? And that even though they have previously had the mental toughness to win Stanley Cups, Olympic Gold, World Junior Tournaments and who knows how many other important games, some of which they probably even came from behind to win, they lack it today?
I know people love myth-making and curses. And I know that our experience as 13-year-old athletes gripped with fear leads us to believe that self-doubt can play a huge role in performance. But the idea that not just one individual athlete, but that a specific group of 20 people in the 99.999th percentile of athletic talent consistently fail to achieve their peak performance due to psychological issues, and that their coaching staff can't come up with a solution for this over a period of years, is, frankly, ridiculous.
I think the disconnect in the intangibles argument is that many of the people who make it aren't clear on who they're arguing with. It's pretty easy to tell me, who has never played professional hockey and spends his days designing audio amplifiers, that I'm an idiot and my approach to the game is wrong. But when you go through the mental gymnastics required to convince yourself that the Sharks are a bunch of babies, you're indicting coaches and athletes who have succeeded at the top levels of the game under unimaginable amounts of pressure. And I think that if you're going to do that, you'd better have a more compelling story than "the Sharks start sobbing when they can't score in tie games."
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I doubt the Sharks are in a funk because they can’t beat Anderson so very easily.
But I do think that one team could be better prepared — mentally, psychologically — for a game or a series than another team.
Just reading Wild Bill, a biography about Wild Bill Hunter, and he goes to great lengths to talk about the cult-like mindset that helped the Oil Kings beat the Bobby Orr-led Flyers in the 1967 Memorial Cup. This is just one example.
So I’m not suggesting the Sharks choke. But I am suggesting some teams have the mindset, the psychology, to rise higher at big moments in big games.
by David Staples @ The Cult of Hockey on Apr 24, 2010 3:52 PM EDT reply actions
It’ll be hilarious if the Sharks win the Cup this year, just to see your “told you so” response. Even though you said heading into the playoffs that the Sharks were overachieving in the regular season this year. :)
I agree with you, BTW. The Sharks have inherited Joe Thornton’s reputation from Boston, though. I don’t think people would talk this way about the team as a whole if the Boston Bruins hadn’t have torn him apart for this same thing. The Bruins were still being run arachaically right through 2005-06 with Harry Sinden still at the top. So Thornton’s supposed psychological struggles became the Sharks’ identity. Even though there is no widespread evidence of the Sharks’ mental psyche in big games (other than Nabokov being overrated, which you have pointed out, and Thornton’s drop in PPG, if this really is evidence of anything of the sort), the whole team gets lumped in with what they’re indetified with.
You’re bang on in saying this is making shit up after the fact. And it’s also important to point out how many times this team has actually lost to a lower ranked opponent (or lower ranked by a significant margin)…. it has not been very often.
Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.
Hamrlik
This whole mental setup mumbo jumbo is a plague.
Roman Hamrlik is taking a lot of crap from habs fans right now. The narrative goes like that:
- He’s too old (he’s 35)
- He’s bad at playing hockey (he was on the ice for those two SH goals against Washington scored on the habs and on both plays was obviously late backchecking)
- Why doesn’t Martin benches him? Can’t he see what we all see from our couch? The guy is done!
- Mercifully, he finally did just that in the last two games, especially yesterday, playing him 5 minutes at ES. Now that we have Bergeron and / or O’Byrne taking his icetime, we are all good! I mean, we just won against the caps! It’s working!
I mean, we are talking about a guy who averaged 18 minutes at ES all year long, against the opposition’s best (2nd amongst D in Qualcomp and CorsiRELQC). Martin benches him for the last 2 games and has to give 16+ minutes at ES to either O’Byrne or Bergeron and must assign Gorges and Gill (our year-long 3rd pairing) to Ovechkin’s line, all people can think of as an explanation is that he has to give more to the team and that he isn’t playing well.
I mean, seriously? The guy has played 17+ ES minutes a game for the team for the last three seasons, including this very year, and has done so up until what, a week ago? And no one seems ready to entertain the notion that, maybe, he is injured and that said injury is affecting his ability to compete. I mean, the guy must be playing with a broken leg or something for Martin to shelter him like that.
I don’t see the relation between the two situations. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that Hamrlik is mentally or psycholigically ill-equipped for the playoffs. The crux of the Hamrlik argument is that he’s lost a step, that he’s wearing down over a long season and a long career. That’s physical, not mental.
You’ll notice that he had two short shifts after being on the ice for the Caps’ lone goal.
Maybe Hamrlik is hurt, but there’s no evidence of that either. It’s possible an injury to him has been missed and he’s playing hurt, which would absolve him of some personal blame for shoddy play, but doesn’t explain how he is completely lost without Spacek to his right. He was playing well early, he is playing worse as the series goes on. Whatever the case is with him, he has been exploited by the Caps.
He has been beaten several times one on one, he has made terrible decisions to pinch on the PP leading to two SH goals against, and was caught on the ice for an extended shift in Game 5 (as in his guys couldn’t get the puck out, the Caps got a line change in and a desired matchup, and they scored). Is he hurt? That could be, but there was no one instance that stood out in these 5 games that it looked like he was hurt. He has to play less right now, because he has done more hurt in this series than help. Chris Pronger faced the same thing in the Olympics. That doesn’t make him a lousy player.
But it does make Hamrlik a $5.5m nightmare for the Habs moving forward.
Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.
Looking at the past few seasons i would not say the sharks choked.
They lost to Edmonton when the sharks were the #5 seed in the second round. Edmonton beat the Red Wings(8 vs1) and went on to lose in the stanley cup finals.
They lost the next year to the Red Wings in the second round(1vs 5),
The following year the sharks lost to the stars as a 2 vs 5 in the second. Sharks went to 7 games with the flames and started out 0-3 in the series against the stars and never recovered. This series had 4 OT games! The sharks should have beat the stars in this series.
Last year against the Ducks was an interesting series. Looking back the upset to me is not as surprising. Hiller turned out to be a really good goalie, Ducks were on fire down the stretch, and the starting 5 of the ducks were better than the starting 5 of the sharks imho. They took the wings to a 7 game series. Additionally the sharks had some injuires that they could not overcome. If you replayed this series a 100 times, i dont know if the sharks would beat the ducks more than half the time. Three of the games against anaheim won were won by 2 goals or more.
I dont know how people watch the sharks past playoff performance and arrive at the conclusion that they are mentally weak.
Perhaps it has more to do with the different officiating in playoffs or the fact that the top 3 lines and top 4 D get the majority of ice time. Maybe its the lack of open space or the increased physical play in the playoffs. Or maybe they are not as good as people think, or just keep getting bad matchups. I think those are all more plausible than the “mental midget” argument
by InThorntonweTrust on Apr 24, 2010 9:00 PM EDT reply actions
Gabe,
Do you think all of the guys in the NHL are roughly equivalent in their ability to deal with the game psychologically? If so, that strikes me as kind of crazy. It’s certainly not the case with other skills. Zack Stortini works on his skating as hard as anybody but he’s still one of the slower players in the league. Why would psychological make-up be any different?
by Scott Reynolds on Apr 24, 2010 11:17 PM EDT reply actions
Think about what you just asked. How does wearing Teal make one not able to deal with a game psychologically? Players come and go; the make-up of the team today differs from last season. Sure we have some of the same core players, but the others? And what about the year before that or before that? Do they put on Teal and suddenly have a mental issue with succeeding?
Ever get the feeling we are on a collision course with reality?
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" -- Benjamin Franklin
I didn’t see the part about the Sharks in the comment. I can buy that around the league, different players are more prepared than others for pressure situations, but I don’t know how big the gulf is. Probably not all that big.
Cидни Kросби: Александр Oвечкин, он твой папа теперь
Capitals Coming: for Capitals fans who can bear reading something less intelligent than a story at Japers' Rink
by red army line on Apr 25, 2010 5:06 AM EDT up reply actions
Yeah, I’m really not referring to the Sharks in particular here at all. I just think there is probably some variation in ability here across the spectrum of NHL players.
by Scott Reynolds on Apr 25, 2010 9:34 PM EDT up reply actions
Scott,
I don’t think players are equivalent in their makeup in any way. I mean, just look at the number of players with alcohol and substance abuse problems. A DUI is certainly an indication that a player is not performing at his highest levels mentally.
But in terms of players who succeed in the regular season but fail in the playoffs? I don’t know how we’d figure that out. Surely there must be some players who are somehow afflicted, but this information has to be kept under wraps, so we don’t know who they are. I have no problem with this theory.
What I think is incorrect, though, is a theory that says that putting on a Sharks jersey reduces a player’s performance levels in the playoffs, and just when the game is tied. That theory, unfortunately, seems prevalent.
To add to this: I suspect that on a team basis it is probably a wash, with a larger variation between individuals on a team than between teams as a whole.
As a metric or analysis (read divining) tool this really falls into the ‘a team can probably screw the pooch on this, but it’s not a bout to give you an edge’ category of factors such as nutrition, injury management, team fitness, down time management, travel management etc. Any team that screws the pooch in those areas will perform poorly, but there isn’t an ‘edge’ to be had as such, because best practices are going to pretty much the same across the board. A team that is an early adopter can gain or lose by being first to try a new scheme, but the extent of the effect is probably marginal in any case. This all is in contrast to how athletes in individual sports can be affected, which is I think part of the problem in this discussion. In this context we’re used to thinking about individual athletes, or at least I am, and over a team those effects will wash out barring disasters or disastrous management.
On the individual side: An individual athlete can lose a race because they missed two hours of sleep or had a meal at the wrong time – seriously with less than say 1min separating no. 1 and 3 over 50k a performance loss of 1% due to any factor can cost you a medal. It really is that tight. On the other hand, on a a team, one player losing say 5% performance potential off their 20min contribution to the team effort results in 0.33% performance loss for the team, not counting the goaltender. I’m sure that could be weighted to account for the importance of a player/position/whatever, but if you’re losing 1% of your performance potential, as a team in hockey, because one player is mentally taking themselves out I’d be shocked. I suspect minor physical wear and tear would have a bigger impact on performance.
Would a team that addresses these “issues” with team psychologist and other techniques get a team advantage int his aspect? What about teams in the fish bowls of Montreal and Toronto?
Do you think there is added pressure on the Sharks and additional coaching needed to overcome the perception, real or not, of the media and fans. The constant questions and such have the potential create a self fulfilling prophecy that at least needs to be addressed by the coaching staff. While the origin of the myth maybe misguided the reality of the myth maybe it’s existence.
In your opinion has the Shark top line performed at or below regular season expectations. Is this just chance? If not, what do you attribute their performance.
In your opinion has the Shark top line performed at or below regular season expectations. Is this just chance? If not, what do you attribute their performance.
They’ve scored less, and that’s attributable to Heatley’s injury and chances not going in. They have been matched by the Statsny line the entire series and have outchanced that line roughly 2-1 each game, period and for the series. They’ve performed to the same level.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
Yeah, this seems reasonable. I certainly don’t think there’s anything to being a Shark that equals high-pressure failure though it does seem at least possible that some team could collect players like this. At any rate, I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t saying “these are NHL players and they work hard thus couldn’t possibly have a problem in this area.”
by Scott Reynolds on Apr 26, 2010 12:16 AM EDT up reply actions
My theory is that some guys coast in the regular season, then they crank up their “A” games in the playoffs, so they look like “clutch” performers, when really all they are is a bit lazy when the games are less meaningful.
Exhibit A: Glenn Anderson of the 1980s Oilers.
Exhibit B: Many, many veterans over the age of 30. They know when to turn it on, by, for instance, starting to block shots.
by David Staples @ The Cult of Hockey on Apr 27, 2010 6:11 PM EDT up reply actions
I mostly agree with this, but with one caveat:
I think it is able to happen where a player, and most especially a goalie, can get into someone’s head. When you’re facing a goalie that seems to be stopping EVERYTHING, no matter how hard you try, no matter how great a setup, now matter how hard the shot, that definitely has an effect on players, I believe. You start “overthinking”, trying to make that extra pass to try to catch the goalie out of position, instead of taking the shot. You start trying to make one more extra move to beat him. You start looking too hard trying to pick out the edges of the net, concentrating instead of doing what comes natural to you. And frequently, all these things turn out to go against you, because that extra pass, that extra move, that extra second, those extra shots wide, when the game moves so fast, those moments kill you. Maybe I’m wrong, but I truly believe this happens, and I think I’ve seen playoff series where it has had a serious impact. Being a Wings fan, I would point to 2003 Giguere as one fantastic example, and I’ve know its happened in other places too. I can totally see how a team could inadvertently end up shooting themselves in the foot because of this.
http://sacrificethebody.blogspot.com/
Sacrifice the Body - Examining the NHL through statistical analysis, reasoned thought, and blind conjecture.
Joe – you or I might overthink, but we’re not pro athletes. What we know about ourselves is irrelevant to their stories.
Let’s step away from hockey for a second. Do you make mistakes while you’re driving? Ever lose mental focus? Does that mean Nascar or F-1 drivers do the same? There’s no comparison.
Joe – you or I might overthink, but we’re not pro athletes.
Do you honestly think that pro athletes are infallible to this degree when it comes to the mental rigors of their jobs? You used the comparison of average joe to a NASCAR/F1 racer and you’ve stated in previous posts that some poor schlub playing beer league doesn’t compare to an NHLer in the mental aspects. This seems a little disingenuous to me as the likelihood of a human being, even a finely tuned (Wellwood not withstanding) professional athlete not being susceptible to some adverse effects of the rigors of sports. IF the physical aspects of a sport can be honed via muscle memory, skill development, inane talent and preperation, how do you account for mistakes? Is it all unintentional? Always a breakdown in mechanics? Bad hop? I don’t think you really mean what it sounds like, because it sounds like you’re saying pro athletes don’t make mental errors.
Sure, I make mental mistakes while driving. So do professional drivers. Sure I make mental mistakes during hockey games. So do pro players. Are they to the same degree/severity? Probably not even close, but to imply that professional athletes are somehow immune to mental mistakes is just flat out inconceivable.
If we don't get our sauce, we ain't watching the game!
Again, you miss the point and fail to read any of the other comments that I’ve written.
The point I made right there is that my experience and your experience and Joe’s experience is not relevant when discussing professional athletes.
A professional athlete doesn’t go to work on the days he plays. He has a training regimen. he eats right. He has hopefully been watching tape and to see what mistakes he makes. He is hopefully then trying to keep them from happening. That’s the process. It may be fallible; it may not eliminate mental errors; but it bears no resemblance to the approach that amateurs have to sports.
You and I go out at midnight and play hockey with a bunch of out-of-shape guys with regular jobs who may or may not have gotten boozed up before the game. We are not comparable. Maybe Johnny Chan is racked with self-doubt as he bluffs at the poker table – who knows? The fact that you or I are says nothing about Johnny.
I think there’s a larger point too. The issue is not so much that NHL players can’t have different levels of concentration, stress, etc. but that the effect is minor compared to the spread of actual skill. I’m sure NHL players make mistakes, because nobody’s perfect and they’re not machines, but the magnitude of the mental game is small enough that we can never observe it conclusively from data. The fact is people only pull up the intangibles excuse post hoc, to explain what has already happened. If you can’t predict anything based on your theory, it’s like intelligent design, it’s not a theory. It is, in Gabe’s eloquent words, making shit up
On a slightly related note is Joe Thornton’s well documented point production drop-off in the post-season, real? Is it out of character for other players, other top players? It is post hoc, however, the pattern has been reported. What do you attribute it to? Bad luck, less chance to pull out a slump because he has had as many playoff games as others, injury?
Is there the expected range of playoff responses. Some do better, some do worse, some do the same. Are there any patterns in performance or is it random. Do certain players really always under perform, over perform and remain steady? I expect the problem is lack of data for the most part. That leads to modeling noise not signal. [Could you run permutation tests to overcome this partially…]
Again, you’re projecting your perception of my level of understanding onto you reading of my comment.
I took a very minor issue with one statement (that I’ve seen you make repeatedly in various forms), namely the “pro athletes don’t overthink” one I highlighted above. I even cached it later in the comment saying that I don’t think YOU think that they don’t make mental errors, but that’s how it read to me and I wanted to make sure I was understanding the statement correctly. I never said that my mental mistakes were comparable to a pro athlete’s in severity. In fact, I said the exact opposite. I said your comment made it sound like pro athletes don’t make mental mistakes and I disagreed. Mental errors are a result of the human condition and parallels, albeit minor, can be drawn from one HUMAN (non-pro) to another HUMAN (pro). That was the gist of my comment.
I’m not trying to be confrontational, I was asking for a clarification. If my post wasn’t clear I apologize.
If we don't get our sauce, we ain't watching the game!
Thank you for this.
Finally some logic from non-Sharks hockey bloggers on this issue.
Proud member of the "Don't Trade Marleau" club.
Fear the Fin: Where Sharks Fans Aren't Like Other Sharks Fans.
by SharksFanEst.1994 on Apr 26, 2010 12:45 AM EDT reply actions
But I see you are a Sharks fan. Still deserve props though.
Proud member of the "Don't Trade Marleau" club.
Fear the Fin: Where Sharks Fans Aren't Like Other Sharks Fans.
by SharksFanEst.1994 on Apr 27, 2010 12:17 AM EDT up reply actions
[Patrick Marleau] scored those goals from working hard and skating hard. But when you get away from that because maybe you’re stressing out about scoring in the playoffs, you have to dig deep and find a way to perform at your highest level when it really counts.
Some guys never figure that out. I know that I love the pressure situation. I used to build that into my head, it was the greatest situation I could ever imagine. If you can do that and do those positive repetitions for yourself, that muscle is going to get pretty strong. For the guys who can’t be positive and build that into their head, it can do the opposite and affect you in a negative way and work against you.
http://www.fearthefin.com/2010/4/28/1448458/fireside-chats-bret-hedican-talks
Bret Hedican isn’t just a beer leaguer projecting this is a two time Olympian and former Stanley Cup winner. He also says that he doesn’t know if this is what is happening but he also expresses it as a real phenomenon. I personally suspect that all it takes is to start with a good (read get the bounces) game and it doesn’t become an issue. It is probably intractable and inconsistent. Thus useless to pick up from stats. A locker room might know but those outside that locker room will be at a loss or at least just guessing.
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