Reminds me of James Reimer, the starting goaltender for my team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. No one disrespects him or mocks him or anything though.
http://www.thestar.com/sports/hocke...ng-videos-how-the-leafs-prepare-for-big-games
James Reimer, like most people in sports, tosses numbers around easily. They roll off the goaltender’s tongue . . . 14:31, 41:10, 3:1, each reference punctuated with an aside such as “that one’s pretty great†or “a real classic.â€
Reimer doesn’t keep a bible on opposition shooters; he has the Bible. Matthew 14:31, Isaiah 41:10, Colossians 3:1 are all among the passages he cites as reminders of his place in the grander scheme.
The Maple Leafs open the franchise’s 95th season at the Air Canada Centre against Montreal on Thursday. Toronto fans, their own faith shaken by six consecutive seasons without a playoff appearance, will be anxiously watching to see if these Leafs really have found their saviour in the guy making the saves.
To cope with the burden, as he does on the night before every game, Reimer will connect to God through prayer and his well-thumbed Bible.
Other Leafs, like athletes in all sports, have found their own pre-game quiet place, even if their methods don’t appear overtly calming. Jay Rosehill, for example, watches fight videos on his laptop. Tyler Bozak likes to play war games on Xbox.
In the largely secular world of hockey, calling on a higher power other than Brian Burke is atypical, but Reimer says his devotion allows him to cope with life in the Toronto fishbowl.
“He’s a strength that I rely on big-time because the nerves and the pressure is way too much for me, especially at times,†Reimer explains.
“There’s a passage that reads, ‘He gives you the peace that exceeds all understanding.’ To feel that in the midst of a pressure-filled, pressure-cooker place to play — especially on the night before when I’m, like, ‘Crap, what’s going to happen tomorrow; I could get lit for 13 goals on 17 shots’ — to experience that through Him, with Him. That’s indescribable. That’s the big thing for me, just that peace in a chaotic life.â€
Opening Night accentuates the anxious moments. But on the eve of any big event, athletes from all sports wrestle with the inner demons of self-doubt. How they manage their emotions, how they find peace before the lights turn off will almost always influence how they perform when the spotlight comes on, whether they’ll be facing a rampaging defensive lineman, one of the NHL’s best shooters or an icy mountain slope.
“It’s such a mental game,†says Canadian alpine skier Manuel Osborne-Paradis, recalling the night before hurtling down the treacherous drop at the menacing Hahnenkamm course at Kitzbuehel where speeds can hit 140-kilometres an hour.
“It’s so in your head about how to figure out the course; how to be so scared but still push yourself to be one of the fastest guys is mentally very draining. I kind of like to watch a movie and zone out. It’s not what you’re watching. It’s more just the fact that you’re doing something other than just freaking out inside.â€
Those psychological hurdles are not exclusive to athletes. Everyone from a salesperson making a presentation to a lawyer crafting a closing argument must deal with performance jitters in their professional lives.
Singer Adele recently confided to British Vogue that stage fright makes her physically ill.
“I puke quite a lot before going on stage,†she said. “But the pre-show puke guarantees a great performance. The bigger the freak-out, the more I enjoy the show.â€
Not to regurgitate an old story, but Adele was simply channeling her inner Glenn Hall, the Hall of Fame NHL goaltender who would famously find a not-so-quiet moment to wretch before each game. It is in sports, where failures and successes are so brutally laid bare and athletes face the added element of physical danger, that controlling anxiety becomes crucial. So much so, that it is not unusual for professional teams and various national sports bodies to employ a psychologist to handhold players through mentally troubling times and help them be at their best when the fans take their seats.
“You should be breathing slowly and deeply. Let all the last traces of tension drain out of your body. You may notice a sensation of warmth and heaviness throughout your body as though you are sinking deeper and deeper into the bed or chair. You may feel you are floating on a cloud or lying on a warm beach. Enjoy the sensation of relaxation. Ask yourself, are there any changes you would like to make in your game or your life? Changes that you have direct control over. Repeat to yourself the specific behavioral changes that you want to bring about. Picture yourself performing these new-found behaviors. Accept this scene and the change it represents as already being part of your game or your life.â€
The soothing voice belongs to broadcaster Tish Iceton but the words are from Paul Dennis, a professor of sports psychology at both York and Toronto universities. Dennis, employed by the Leafs for more than two decades, believes so strongly that mental preparation the night before a game can influence performance that he created, and has widely distributed, an 11-minute CD to guide them through those quiet moments.
Click here to listen to the CD
The recording takes the listener through a series of progressive relaxation exercises and, just as the athlete is about to drift off, he or she visualizes a successful performance the next day.
“Let’s say it’s a goal scorer, the theory is if he sees himself handling the puck really well, being incredibly confident and finishing off with a great shot and a great goal, that image seeps into his subconscious mind and that’s the driving force behind all his behaviour,†explains Dennis.
“If he has that image just before falling off to sleep, the more likely it is he will try to replicate that the next day.â€
Dennis said it’s not unusual for even very successful athletes to feel anxious or experience self-doubt the night before a game or race. To get past that, he says, a psychologist might encourage the athlete to “restructure†his thinking and recall the positive images of triumph.
“What we’re trying to do is get them to shift their focus from what could go wrong to what is always right. Focus on the evidence; focus on the truth,†says Dennis. “They wouldn’t be a professional athlete or a highly successful athlete if the negative things they’re thinking came to fruition.â€
Still, it’s not always easy.
Rosehill fights the doubts inherent in his role as an enforcer who wasn’t guaranteed a spot on the opening night roster. He cracked the lineup but he’s never certain when he will play but when he does, he’s almost certain he will have to fight the other team’s tough guy.
“Some of the times I’ve been really anxious or nervous, by the end of the game, I always look back and laugh. ‘Why was I worked up about that? That was no problem.’
But then the next day comes and you go through it again,†he says.
While teammate Reimer opens his Bible for reassurance, Rosehill reaches for his mouse. On the eve of a game or before his pre-game nap, he’ll surf the web looking for hockey fights featuring the opponent he’ll most likely encounter on the ice. He dissects his style but, mostly, he wants to see his potential dance partner getting pummeled.
“I’ll end off with one where the guy I’m thinking about didn’t fare so well. I try to see what (his opponent) did to get the better of him and try to leave on that note so that I have a little bit of extra confidence,†he explains.
Most successful athletes have developed mental tricks to calm themselves in order to get their rest and not be knotted with anxiety on the eve of competition.
“You sometimes have to separate yourself from your sport,†says Jon Montgomery, the skeleton racer who won gold at the Vancouver Olympics.
“Read a book or sit down with a cup of tea; a glass of wine for some athletes. For myself, I usually have one beer while I’m preparing (my sled) runners the night before just to make sure you’re getting yourself calm.â€
Far from the days when the likes of Broadway Joe Namath would famously be completing passes with members of the opposite sex on the eve of a big game, if you were to kick in Montgomery’s door the night before a race, he’d likely be reading Adam Carolla’s In Fifty Years We’ll all be Chicks after he enjoyed that single beer while sanding his sled’s blades to a mirror-like sheen.
National team skier Larisa Yurkiw would likely be sipping tea, reading a Danielle Steele novel — “Something that can make me brain dead before I go to sleep. Anything that isn’t too deep; anything that doesn’t have intricate sentences . . . no real theories,†she says — and listening to acoustic music.
Leafs centre Bozak, after going through a mental checklist of the faceoff habits of the opposition pivots, would likely be winding down playing Call of Duty online, possibly with teammates Clarke MacArthur, Mike Komisarek or Mike Brown.
While, on the night before stepping into the trenches against the best rush ends in the NFL, Buffalo Bills left tackle Demetrius Bell chugs a carton of milk while munching oatmeal raisin cookies.
“I never had a sports psychologist. I’ve never heard of that,†says the 311-pound lineman. “I like milk and I like cookies.â€
Not all athletes are on edge before a competition. While Yurkiw confesses to being “scared†before racing a new track and looks for ways to numb those feelings, local mixed martial arts fighter Claude Patrick said he is actually at his most relaxed the night before a bout. It’s almost a relief, he says. He’s made it through his training healthy, which isn’t always guaranteed, and is ready to go to work, which he loves to do. It matters little that his “work†can be dangerous and bloody.
“Being worried about what a guy is going to do to you makes no sense, because you can’t change that,†he explains. “I focus mostly on myself. They have a plan but so do you.â€
Matt Lashoff, a defenceman who just departed Leafs’ camp for the Marlies, uses visualization to keep his confidence up despite his status on the cusp of the NHL. The night before a game, he’ll consume any hkey he can find on television as a learning tool and then he’ll picture everything in his mind from what position he should take in certain situations on the ice to how he’ll recover if something goes wrong.
“A lot of this stuff may seem like hocus-pocus from the outside but it really is just driving home positive re-affirmations to yourself,†he said. “Not only does it help you on the ice, it keeps you sane.â€
awwwwe!
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