Sport psychology researchers have studied careers of Canadian ice hockey players in the National Hockey League (NHL) and devised an empirical NHL career model (Authors, 2015; in press). The model was comprised of career stages, statuses, demands and barriers to career progression without any indication of coping. The intent in the present article is to feature coping resources and strategies utilized by players during each status and career stage within the empirical model. Five rookies, five veterans, and 13 retirees participated in conversational interviews and the data underwent a deductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2012). Prospects seeking to gain entry into the NHL set controllable expectations rather than playing to impress coaches and staff. Most prospects played in the minor leagues where they adjusted their expectations to accept roles that they were likely to have during an NHL call-up. The career stage of developing as an NHL player was about rookies producing immediately in their role while holding off internal competition for their roster spot. In the same stage, sophomores were in their second full NHL season and they studied their opponents to avoid the sophomore slump. The stage of reaching the NHL elite involved constant pressure for point production and winning playoff games. The final stage was about seasoned veterans maintaining NHL play involvement by preserving their physique despite being worn down from long careers in a contact sport. The authors will discuss the significance of the model for sport psychology researchers and practitioners, and NHL stakeholders. © The Author(s) 2019.

Coach-athlete sexual relationships constitute ethical, behavioral, social, and emotional quandaries that are rarely addressed openly. Most of the current body of research in this area focuses on coaches' sexual harassment and abuse of children and female athletes. In the present article, we discuss legal coach-athlete sexual relationships and adopt a coach perspective. As dual relationships, coach-athlete sexual relationships blur the boundaries between professional roles circumscribed (usually) by ethical codes of conduct and private spheres of love and desire. We explore the problems associated with the limitations of dichotomous right/wrong ethical decision making and discuss additional ways to understand these relationships, accounting for coaches' and athletes' well-being, performance, gendered sexual agency, power, ethical dilemmas, sport policy, and legal implications. Our discussion raises questions about how to open up dialogue and transparency regarding coach-athlete sexual relationships and how to facilitate functional, healthy coach-athlete relationships. Finally, we provide implications for future research that include legal and consensual coach-athlete sexual relationships and advocate transparency, open discussion, and coach education about coach-athlete sexual relationship dilemmas. © The Author(s) 2016.

Interest in coaching and coaches, as well as coach–athlete relationships, has for a long time been a traditional and solid part of talent development literature. In recent times, talent development research has employed a holistic ecological approach and emphasized the important role of a broader athletic environment in athletes’ development and a constitutive role of organizational culture in the success of such an environment. This case study uses the holistic ecological perspective to examine coaching practices and philosophy through the lens of organizational culture in a Danish high performance swimming environment. The environment was selected based on its performance success but also because of its nontraditional organization compared to typical Danish swimming clubs. Data were generated from in-depth interviews with six coaches, 30 h of participant observation of training and meetings, and analysis of related documents. Thematic data analysis was guided by Schein’s model of organizational culture. The findings revealed the organizational culture that incorporates specific features of coaching practices and philosophy through cultural artifacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions. In the artifacts, coaching practices were explicit (e.g. flexible training groups and schedules) and philosophy implicit (e.g. ongoing flow of feedback), while in the espoused values, coaching philosophy was explicit (e.g. swimmers as whole persons, long-term development focus) and consistent with basic cultural assumptions(e.g. swimmers’ autonomy as a basis for progress). The study revealed that the cultural lens was helpful in exploring consistency between what coaches communicate about what they do (and how and why they do it) and what they actually did (and how they did it). © The Author(s) 2018.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between legal stops and winning in team handball. Real-time analysis was performed on all games played in the Icelandic elite division for both males and females (regular season and playoffs) between 2017–2021 (854 games [570 male games, 284 female games], 32,392 legal stops in total). Legal stops were assessed as any physical action by a defensive player that resulted in the stop of play, without the defensive player being penalized or the offensive player receiving a 7-meter throw. The results from a multinomial logistic regression analysis indicated that legal stops were significantly associated with winning games in the male league. No statistically significant relationship was found between illegal stops and game outcome for either sex. However, 2-minute suspensions were found to be positively associated with winning in the male league. © The Author(s) 2022.

In this study we continue to explore the junior-to-senior transition (JST) process in Swedish ice hockey by validating the empirical model ‘Phases in the JST of Swedish Ice Hockey Players’ created in our previous study (Stambulova et al., 2017). More specifically, we collected opinions and critical reflections of fifteen senior professional players and expert coaches about the empirical model as a whole and about the content of each JST phase, and then converted the original empirical model into its validated version (further – the validated model). Professional ice hockey players and first league coaches formed three focus groups, while three senior coaches were interviewed individually. All were encouraged to critically reflect on the empirical model. The data from all sources were analysed following guidelines of the thematic (deductive) analysis, complemented by quantitative measurements of the participants’ agreement with the content of the empirical model. Results supported the sequence and designations of the JST phases (i.e., preparation, orientation, adaptation, and stabilization), as well duration of the JST (i.e., up to four seasons) outlined by the empirical model. We were also able to validate the psychological content (perceived demands, resources, barriers, coping strategies, and outcomes) of each transitional phase. Accordingly, five themes were reformulated, seventeen new themes were added and some themes were re-ordered during the conversion of the original empirical model into the validated model. To improve the readability of the validated model (from the bottom to the top) we also re-ordered sub-categories describing the psychological content of each JST phase. We conclude by discussing the validated model in relation to theoretical frameworks and previous research and providing some methodology, future research, and practice-oriented reflections addressed to researchers, coaches and sport psychology practitioners. © The Author(s) 2017

The aim of this study was to explore athlete-coach relationships from an athletic career perspective with the objectives: 1) to create individual career profiles of athlete-coach relationships, 2) to illustrate the career profiles describing athletes’ subjective experiences of working with all the coaches involved in their careers, and (c) to summarize athletes’ views on the dynamics of athlete-coach relationships in the course of their careers. Two case studies using narrative interviews with one team and one individual sport athlete (both Swedish) were made. The Narrative Oriented Inquiry model was used to guide the data collection, treatment and interpretation. The results representing over 20 relationships in total are presented as individual career profiles of athlete-coach relationships followed by interpretive narratives exploring more in detail the different athlete-coach relationships throughout their careers. Poems summarizing the athletes’ perceived dynamics of their relationships with coaches are then presented using only the athletes own words.

Although previous research has investigated the training-specific adaptations to training in adults, there is a paucity of research aimed at investigating these adaptations in adolescent athletes. As such, adolescent athletes’ training-specific adaptations from three different training interventions were investigated in this study. Sixteen adolescent athletes participated in this study, whereby eight performed both training interventions and eight the non-training control. Pre- and post-testing was performed for each intervention with the testing battery: ultrasonography of the vastus lateralis and lateral gastrocnemius, countermovement jump, squat jump, and isometric mid-thigh pull. The resistance training group had large significant increases in isometric mid-thigh pull relative peak force (p < 0.01, g = 0.85 (−0.01, 1.71)) and vastus lateralis fascicle length (p = 0.04, g = 0.94 (0.07, 1.80)). The gymnastics and plyometric group demonstrated large significant changes in vastus lateralis pennation angle (p = 0.03, g = −0.94 (−1.81, −0.08)) and fascicle length (p = 0.03, g = 1.07 (0.19, 1.95)), and moderate significant increases in lateral gastrocnemius thickness (p = 0.01, g = 0.63 (−0.21, 1.47)) and eccentric leg stiffness (p = 0.03, g = 0.60 (−0.24, 1.44)). No significant changes were observed for any variables in the non-training group. The resistance training evoked increases in lower-body force producing capabilities, whereas the gymnastics and plyometric training evoked changes in muscle structure and inherent muscle qualities. © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017.

The purpose of this study was to explore a temporal structure (i.e. sequence of phases and relevant psychological content) of the junior-to-senior transition (JST) in Swedish ice hockey players. The study was a qualitative exploration of the JST transition process designed in three steps. First, the athletic career transition model coupled with a holistic developmental approach and analysis of the Swedish ice hockey context, were used to create a conceptual four-phase (preparation, orientation, adaptation and stabilization) JST framework and interview guides. Second, seven active semi-professional ice hockey players were interviewed about their JST experiences and asked for their feedback on the conceptual framework. Finally, based on the empirical data and the participants’ feedback, the conceptual framework was transformed into an empirical model of the JST. In the empirical model ‘Phases in the JST of Swedish ice hockey players’ the authors provided a summary of the players’ transition experiences (i.e. perceived demands, resources, barriers, coping strategies and outcomes) within each of the four (i.e. the preparation, the orientation, the adaptation, and the stabilization) JST phases. Further, the authors discussed the empirical model in relation to theoretical frameworks and previous research and also provided methodology-, future research- and practice- oriented reflections addressed to researchers, coaches and sport psychology practitioners. © The Author(s) 2017