National Post (National Edition)

‘Invisible enemy’ for NHL players

PANDEMIC INJECTS ARRAY OF NEW ANXIETIES INTO PLAYOFFS

- STEVE SIMMONS ssimmons@postmedia.com Twitter.com/simmonsste­ve

In a moment of panic, Alexander Mogilny, who hated to fly, sprinted off the Buffalo Sabres airplane years ago, and quickly coach John Muckler turned to Maxie Offenberge­r and shouted: “Go get him ... and bring him back.”

Offenberge­r, who has been around the National Hockey League for some 40 years with various teams, was the team psychologi­st for the Sabres at the time.

“I knew I could go get him. I just didn’t know if I could bring him back.”

Psychologi­sts don’t find definitive answers as much as they find solutions. Some things aren’t so definitive. Mogilny went on to play five seasons of his career later with the Vancouver Canucks, with the worst travel schedule in hockey. He never stopped hating flying. With help, he found a way to get through it.

Offenberge­r, who now works for the Boston Bruins, was relating this story when asked about the upcoming summer of sports returning in both the NHL and the NBA, the year of the playoff season and the great unknowns. In the words of another hockey lifer, “the year of the sports psychologi­st.”

“Today’s athletes demand answers and demand certainty, more than ever before,” said Paul Dennis, who spent 20 years in various roles with the Toronto Maple

Leafs, including team psychologi­st. “And can any answers be given with certainty (right now)? ... Fear of the unknown could be debilitati­ng for some players this summer.

“Normally we’d talk to athletes who have come forth with their problems. We’d listen to them. We’d advise them. We’d work on advising them to focus on stopping the puck and preparing to be the greatest goalie they can be, for example. But there’s a distractio­n now that isn’t hockey. It has nothing to do with hockey.

“Now we can’t say ‘don’t worry about it,’ because nobody seems to know what the answers are. And some of the answers are contradict­ory.”

The NHL will split 24 teams in two locations, likely sometime in late July, early August. The NBA may seemingly play all its games at one location in Orlando. The players will be asked to perform at playoff level, the highest of their lives, with their lives going on away from them, wives, parents, grandparen­ts, kids, COVID-19.

There are many players with psychologi­cal needs in profession­al sports that never come forward. Some are brave and seek help. Some suffer in silence. The rare one goes public. This is still a world of macho and men.

“Most players still don’t have the courage or trust to voice their feelings,” said Offenberge­r.

“I think this (return) could be difficult on so many levels for different players.

“This will be a tremendous challenge for everybody — coaches, trainers, managers, everyone involved, the entire support staff. And it’s not like you can completely prepare for this.

Everybody is going to have to be concerned when players don’t feel good. The question will be in some players’ minds: Am I safe here?”

Playoff hockey, by nature, is all-consuming. It is normally about games and treatments and preparatio­n and travel. There isn’t time for family or friends or social life under these circumstan­ces.

Now there will be hockey, assuming the game returns, and COVID. And testing. And new rules. And safety. And a hotel room that will be home from Day 1 of the playoffs until the playoffs end for most teams. Could be a week. Could be a month. Could be two months. This could weigh on people just as staying home right now is weighing on many of us.

“Say you’re on a line, and your two wingers are really good with the situation and doing well, but you’re not,” Offenberge­r said.

“You’re not handling things so well. You’re really bothered. Everybody’s different, everybody handles things differentl­y. This could affect your team dramatical­ly.

“These are young people, in many cases, who have had no personal trauma in their lives. They haven’t lost a parent. They haven’t lost a grandparen­t in many cases. They’ve never had anything negative really happen to them. Now this. And we don’t know how everything will work out, and how everyone will deal with it personally.”

As a sports psychologi­st, Dennis refers to COVID-19 as the “invisible enemy.” And that makes it all the more challengin­g for profession­al athletes to work.

“There’s pressure to understand how to handle it and where the athletes are getting their guidance from,” Dennis said. “We rely on the experts, and the problem is the experts seem to change their minds all the time. Coaches aren’t medical doctors or scientists. They can’t pretend to be. Hopefully they’ll be well versed on how to provide guidance when needed.”

“Athletes mostly think of themselves as invincible on the outside,” Offenberge­r said. “That’s part of how they become who they are. But on the inside, they have anxiety, they have depression, they have family issues, they have OC/D, they have what we all have. This isn’t going to be easy for a lot of people.”

THIS ISN’T GOING TO BE EASY FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE.

 ?? GETTY IMAGES FILES ?? Alexander Mogilny, seen here with the Buffalo Sabres in 1993, did not like to fly.
GETTY IMAGES FILES Alexander Mogilny, seen here with the Buffalo Sabres in 1993, did not like to fly.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada