BY HANNAH PURKEY

In print | Published February 12, 2009

It was the perfect game — the embodiment of every reason to watch sports. The defending Stanley Cup champions the Detroit Red Wings and the National Hockey League’s points-leading San Jose Sharks, separated only by one point in the western conference standings, met up at the shark tank last month for the third time this season. The game had all the ingredients of a sports thriller: high-quality hockey featuring big goals, big hits and big saves. The two titans of hockey traded goals back and forth throughout all three periods, neither team willing to slow the pace or let fans leave their seats. When the final save was made, not only had the Sharks held out to win 6-5 and maintain their lead in conference and league standings, but commentators were already hailing the game as an instant classic featuring some of the best hockey of the season.

At the conclusion of an emotional rollercoaster of a game, Sharks players were celebrating the victory as more than just one of 82 regular season games and the Sharks’ 21st out of 24 home victories. After such an outstanding display of hockey talent, one would expect the Sharks to come off this game with the momentum to beat their next opponents handily.

So how did the Sharks play three days later when they faced the Vancouver Canucks? Terribly. I’m not one that easily finds fault with my beloved Sharks, but they followed up one of their best performances in recent years with one of their worst, playing lackluster hockey and barely pulling off an overtime win after being behind for the entire game. The Red Wings did not fair much better in their next few games. The play of both teams was so bad after their epic battle with each other that Sharks announcer Randy Hahn explained, “It was such an emotional high here last week that neither team seems to be able to have followed it up with anything close to a repeat performance.” Nearly a month after this loss, the Sharks still have not returned to the level of play they were showing before the Detroit game.

This phenomenon is not an isolated event in the NHL. In fact, patterns arise after both big wins and after big losses. What a Sharks announcer referred to as the “Coyote bounce back effect” best illuminates the win/loss pattern after big losses. At the end of January, the Phoenix Coyotes had won six out of eight games this season immediately following losses by three or more goals. For the Coyotes, it appears that losing badly could actually work in their favor. The same idea is further seen in individual series between teams. After losing 6-1 to the Sharks earlier in the season, the Calgary Flames came back in their next meeting to beat the Sharks 5-1 in what could only be described as an onslaught. The Sharks’ thrilling win came after their previous meeting with Detroit a month beforehand in which the Red Wings killed the Sharks 6-0.

All of these incidents seem to counter the common understanding that bad performances bring on “slumps” and great performances “hot streaks,” showing just as much evidence for “anti-slumps” and “anti-streaks.” In fact, it suggests that taking a beating once in a while can actually be good for a team. Streaks and slumps are often attributed by sports psychologists to changes in momentum within a game or a season. However, the basis for sports momentum is still highly disputed. A paper published in “Psychonomic Bulletin & Review” included data that there was no support for the individual basketball shooting “hot hand,” instead showing that shots were actually more likely to be scored after misses. Interestingly, though, the same paper goes on to provide qualitative evidence for streaks in golf putting and darts.

A review of psychological momentum in “Athletic Insight: The Online Journal of Sport Psychology” described the divide in the scientific community over whether sports momentum is real or illusory, citing inconsistencies within the quantitative data that make a concrete conclusion difficult to draw. However, the article reviews different approaches psychologists have taken to the phenomenon of sports momentum and the various events that could spark it. Of the three conceptual models the article outlines to offer possible correlations between psychological momentum and performance, only one, the Projected Performance Model, is based off of the idea that momentum is not the cause but in fact the result of changes in performance. This model is particularly noteworthy here because of its possible explanation for the anti-slump/anti-streak results highlighted above in the NHL. One of the constructs of the model is that “positive inhibition” occurs when athletes have done well and caught up or maintained leads with opponents but results in negative outcomes because of “coasting.” “Negative facilitation” occurs in the opposite situation when poor performances act to motivate a team and thus result in positive outcomes.

All of this evidence leads to the conclusion that evaluating the effects and triggers of psychological momentum is simply confusing. Although the use of it here really only functions as a search for explanations for the apparent slump the Sharks are in, in the sports world there is a common belief in the immense effect that psychological momentum can have on an individual or team during a season. However, sports psychologists are still seeking definitive proof that the phenomenon even exists. Until a consensus is reached and possible ways to change momentum are found, fans like me will simply have to grit our teeth through the bad runs and wait for the tide to change.

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