Abstract
The study of psychological momentum has been largely debated over the years in the sport psychology field and continues to be. Some studies have found an influence on performance due to the effect of psychological momentum either positive of negative and some have also found that there is none. In this study the authors use archival data from NHL seasons in order to determine whether psychological momentum has an influence on hockey at this level. An ability bias was controlled for by using teams deemed to be of equal ability due to their records against each other during the season in question. The "coming from behind" scenario was established to be an easily recordable precipitating event of psychological momentum and therefore games where the game was tied were investigated. Positive psychological momentum was deemed to have had an effect on the performance outcome of the team if the team who scored the tying goal also scored the winning goal. It was found that 70% of the time the team who scored the tying goal also scored the winning goal. This was found to be significant at the p=0.05 level (p=0.01). This is a significant finding for this area since we found a significant result from psychological momentum with having controlled for ability which has yet to be largely seen. Future research needs to examine possible differences between groups and individuals for psychological momentum.
