Sports fans may find difficulty associating the phrase “hockey player” with “psychologically balanced.”
That task is entrusted to Boston University sports psychologists Cynthia Adams and Len Zaichkowsky. It is these two who freeze the Icedogs’ nerves before game time and dig beyond the passes, one-timers and hip checks.
Adams and Zaichkowsky specialize in cognitive behavioral therapy – a balance of psychology and psychophysiological sciences – to help BU varsity athletes maintain mental clarity while excelling in competition.
Adams is a performance consultant and clinical social worker who took over full-time hockey team duties from Zaichkowsky in 1997, 12 years after he started the BU Sports Psychology Clinic.
Adams, a former figure skater, was a graduate student assigned to men’s ice hockey in Zaichkowsky’s sports psychology studies program. She operates as an independent consultant and collaborates with Zaichkowsky’s program.
“There are two parts to my job,” Adams said. “First, to assure the players have the ability to extend their skills set from mental components and coordinate their physical conditioning with their mental techniques.”
The Terriers consult Adams every two weeks for team and individual sessions where she combines the physical workout with mental focus exercises. Adams distributes pregame and postgame self-analysis surveys and forces athletes to recognize flaws in their focus. Adams said athletes must develop a flow to their energy, as frequent nervous body reactions to stress – such as “butterflies” – can throw off the athlete’s energy.
“Every night, every game, Hockey East is a big challenge,” she said. “All of these kids come from being the big fish in a small pond, and now they’re just in a pond with a lot of fish. Sometimes kids come in and they’re intimidated. We try to help them create a sense of comfort with change and help them reach the potential that got them here.”
BU men’s hockey coach Jack Parker said he embraces the players’ need for mental comfort and that Adams provides a healthy alternative for emotional release.
“Coaches are supposed to be team psychologists as well,” Parker said. “But the players have a better feel to talk to someone who isn’t deciding ice time. There’s more accomplished if it’s an outside source.”
Even as the last line of defense, BU goalie John Curry said he feels little pressure before each game. His uncle is a former sports psychology professor at Montana State University, so Curry said he appreciates the benefits of mental conditioning.
“If you let in a bad goal early, that can get in your head,” he said. “You have to erase that. To have the tools to do that, to get it out of your head and stay positive is important or you can bury yourself without the other team having to do anything.”
BU defenseman Sean Sullivan couldn’t hesitate in reaching his potential. After vaulting into the starting lineup in his freshman season, he said he learned quickly to control his frustrations and to remember that he was starting for a reason.
“If I got beat on a drill or something, I learned not to just throw my stick down,” he said. “I knew I should be in lineup, and knowing that coach believed in me – that was the big thing. Now I try to do that as an upperclassman by helping out the freshmen.”
The BU Sports Psychology Clinic is an all-BU-student staff comprised of eight doctoral students who practice hands-on treatment and 20 Masters degree students who perform an observatory role. The staff works with Dr. Paula Quatromoni, a nutrition expert at the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation, Karen Plescia at the Academic Support Center and Maria Hutsick at the Sports Medicine Department to form a comprehensive study on the connection between an athlete’s body and mind.
Zaichkowsky said the key to athletic performance is the coordination of three elements of human behavior: thoughts, feelings and actions. Unfocused thoughts or irrational feelings contaminate any action – from skating on a breakaway to crossing the street. Any emotions that contaminate focus and wreck confidence can severely deter athletic performance, he said.
“Hockey is a game of quick and accurate decision-making, and psychology is directly involved in that,” Zaichkowsky said. “We stress more of a ‘make better’ practice instead of a ‘fix it’ strategy.”
As a former consultant to the NBA’s Boston Celtics and the NHL’s Calgary Flames, Zaichkowsky said he found his dealings with college athletes more rewarding and productive.
“At the college level, you know the students see a genuine appreciation for what you’re doing,” he said. “Not all pro athletes are like this, but many of them don’t see that you’re trying to help them.”
In a Terrier season that has seen an injury sideline senior co-captain David Van der Gulik, a shocking loss to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an array of defensive lapses, Adams said that learning from losses can add to the progression of individual operation and team chemistry.
“[Our methods] can vary depending on what the team is experiencing in a particular season,” she said. “Sometimes it’s crisis intervention, and sometimes it’s trying to work on picky skill sets. We try to be proactive in nature. As a player, you need to go in with a sense of confidence and know that you have rehearsed in your mind, that you have the trust in your abilities.”
Athletes often employ pregame rituals or superstitions to keep focus and provide mental clarity. Sullivan said former BU goalie Sean Fields was the epitome of superstition – Fields’s quirks in the locker room included complete silence before games. Adams said that rituals, while not completely effective, produce more proactive results than superstitions, which can be detrimental to performance if they replace self-confidence.
“We try to avoid having athletes connect their success to external forces,” she said. “We make sure to focus on the athlete’s ability. But routines and rituals can sometimes help them get into their flow, as long as the athlete can rely on his or her own skills.”
As the men’s hockey team heads into a road stretch against Providence College and Harvard University, Parker said the Terriers need to harness the mentality of bouncing back through their time on the ice.
“We’ve asked ourselves, ‘How come we responded so poorly this weekend after having such a good weekend before?'” he said. “One of the things we learned, as a coach you have to listen, you can’t tell them what you think. You have to make sure that everybody gets a say. You got to let it all lay out there first. Then the opinions come. These things can’t be a one-way conversation.”