Anxiety and Coping of Hungarian National Ice Hockey Players

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify those major psychological factors that affect ice hockey performance. The exploration of the differences in CSAI-2, ACSI-28 and STPI-Y psychometric measures targeted the adult national team members and the U-18 age-group of ice hockey players in Hungary. U-18 (n = 27) and adult national ice hockey players (n = 25) filled out the tests during a training camp before international preliminary round matches. It was found that State Anxiety, Cognitive Anxiety and Somatic A-State were significantly lower in the adult national team players than in the U-18 group of players. Also, the adult team demonstrated a significantly higher score in relation to Peaking under Pressure and also in Freedom from Worry than the 18 year-old group. Discriminant analysis showed that Cognitive A-State, Trait Curiosity, Coachability, State Anger, Freedom from Worry, and State Depression differentiate the adult team from the U-18 players. We can conclude that the members of the adult team are generally in a more beneficial state from the standpoint of anxiety pressure, and worry than the U-18 group. It seems that the experienced players can better manage unexpected events (stress situations) than the younger players.

Emotions in Team Contact Sports: A Systematic Review

“…In relation to player age also influencing emotional experiences, young players have been reported to experience higher anxiety states, be more sensitive to other stressors, and have fewer coping skills than older players (Géczi, Bognár, Tóth, Sipos, & Fügedi, 2008). Géczi et al (2008) showed that levels of anxiety and anger differed between youth and adult players during an ice hockey training camp. The authors also found that youth players were more anxious and angry compared with adult players who were better able to cope with their emotions in critical moments.…”

Self-esteem, anxiety and coping strategies to manage stress in ice hockey

“…One of the important factors of successful performance in competition is ability to remain calm in stressful situations (Géczi et al, 2008;Smith et al, 1995). Our research showed that ice hockey players with a high level of the self-esteem and low level of the anxiety have a good psychological resilience and know to quickly bounce back from mistakes or setbacks.…”

“…At present, there has not been a single study either evaluating its relationship between anxiety or selfesteem and coping strategies to manage stress in sport. There were some studies carried out earlier by Young and Knight (2014) in risk sport or Vidic et al (2017) in basketball but these studies were only focused on investigating the level of the coping strategies to manage stress or the differences in mental skills between experienced and less experienced athletes (Géczi et al, 2008). However, there has not been a study investigating other factors which may have relationships with coping strategies to manage stress.…”

“…The results of research Pellizzari, Bertollo, and Robazza (2011) showed that best performance was achieved by athletes who set goals, prepared themselves for the competition and listened to their coaches' instructions. In the study of Géczi et al (2008) adult ice hockey players achieved a higher score in subscale peaking under stress and freedom from worry than younger ice hockey players. It means that adult national team ice hockey players were more prepared to give excellent performances in stressful situations and worry less about the negative things that could happen to them in a match (Jooste, van Wyk, & Steyn, 2013;Smith et al, 1995).…”

“…Self-esteem, anxiety and coping strategies of ice hockey players change depending on requirements in sport (Bebetsos, 2015;Bebetsos & Antoniou,2003;Young & Knight, 2014), as well as depending on the level of athletes (Géczi, Bognár, Tóth, Sipos, & Fügedi, 2008). The results of the ice hockey study showed that the more experienced ice hockey players had better control under stress and lower levels of anxiety than younger ice hockey players (Géczi et al, 2008). Therefore, increasing a well-founded need investigating the psychological skills of ice hockey players and prevent it from occurring maladaptive fatigue syndrome.…”