Ovechkin, Caps are getting in the groove

Is Toronto the only place where Ovi is not getting booed? Well, thank you, and Ovi loves to play in Toronto, a place where hockey is truly appreciated.



Alex Ovechkin celebrates his third goal of the game with teammates Nicklas Backstrom and John Carlson during the third period of an NHL hockey game in Toronto on Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011. The Capitals won 4-1. (Photo AP via Yahoo Sports)



Ovi gets his 10th career hat trick and is leading the NHL with 6th GWG this season (washcaps).

But it was truly team's effort with unbelievable performance from Braden Holtby and Matt Hendricks who was 1 assist short of Gordie Howe hat-trick. The team finally bought Boudreau's trap, they are playing 1-2-2, and according to Dan Bylsma switched from earlier 1-3-1 to 1-2-2 trap.

Correct me if I am wrong, but 1-2-2 is even more conservative than 1-3-1. The hockey commentators from HNIC kept saying how different Caps looked now using the words like "Classic trap, they are playing classic trap!" Finally, the moment the whole Caps community was waiting for the last 3 years has arrived. And Caps are getting in a flow for playoffs.


Flow (psychology):

Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the moment, present, in the zone, in the groove, or keeping your head in the game.

In an extreme state of being in the zone, time slows down and unusually higher physical performance may be achieved.

Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi identifies factors as accompanying an experience of flow:

• Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high.
  
• Concentrating, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
  
• A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
  
• Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.
  
• Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
  
• Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
  
• A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
  
• The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
  
• A lack of awareness of bodily needs (to the extent that one can reach a point of great hunger or fatigue without realizing it)
  
• Absorption into the activity, narrowing of the focus of awareness down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

For Ovechkin CLEAR GOALS are now translated into doing whatever is possible to win the ultimate team's trophy, and individual trophies are no longer his goals. And he showed it tonight, scoring GWG (leads NHL) and blocking Dion Phaneuf shot (the whole Caps bench was cheering it). Ovi actually registered 3 blocked shots, I think it's his career high.



More from Wikipedia:

The concept of being in the zone during an athletic performance fits within Csíkszentmihályi's description of the flow experience, and theories and applications of being in the zone and its relationship with athletic competitive advantage are topics studied in the field of sport psychology.

The Formula One driver Ayrton Senna, who during qualifying for the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix explained:

"I was already on pole, [...] and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car. And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel."

When the team gets into the flow in playoffs, it wins the Stanley Cup.

Go, Caps!




washcaps: Holtby, Ovechkin and Hendricks on the win and efforts

By Noah Love, National Post, Jan. 22, 2011 – 10:39 pm

After the game, Ovechkin held court with the media, but a word of warning before the transcript: he seemed a little out of sorts and what followed was not exactly poetic:

Pretty good night for you personally to get your first hat trick of the season?
“Yeah, it’s always nice when you score goals. I’ve been scoring a lot of two goals, one goals. But I’ll take it.”

Talk a bit about your team’s overall effort blocking shots and playing [hard] for a full 60 minutes?
“Yeah, guys did a great job blocking shots, but still they have way too many chances to score. [Braden Holtby] kept us in the game, especially at the end … when we almost couldn’t do anything, he made some unbelievable saves.”

Do you feel like maybe this was your best game [of the season] on both ends of the ice?
“I don’t know. … I had two lucky goals? Three lucky goals … “

Going back to the Philly game, most of [the Capitals'] goals have come from going to the net, and that’s not luck.
“No, it’s not luck. They’re hard-working goals. Like I said, I’ll take these goals and I’m going to try to do the same in every game.”


You’ve scored a lot against the Maple Leafs in your career. Is there something you like about playing on this particular stage?
“It’s just a great atmosphere and a great building to play hockey in. It’s nice.”

You saw a lot of Tim Brent tonight. Where does he rank on the list of players who have covered you? [Note: Ovechkin mishears the name or doesn't know who Brent is, so he just talks about Dion Phaneuf.]
“He’s good here. Phaneuf is one of the best hitters in the league. He made some big hits. I think good tonight. He made a couple mistakes but [mumbles].”

You had a pretty big block on Phaneuf at the end of the game.
“Well, yeah, I was afraid. First shot I go down, I was a little afraid. I put my hand up to my face and I blocked it, so it was nice.”

Read more...

Ovechkin's 17th, 18th and 19th (from Russian Versus/ESPN :)


I saw the photo, but didn't realize the man was holding the waffles, lol.
By Puck Daddy:

But as odd as this waffle hat/Frisbee/whatever was, it couldn't compete with another item that hit the ice:

Car keys. For real.

It's tradition to allow the player who records the hat trick to keep whatever's thrown on the ice, should they choose to. It's only fair, then, that Ovechkin get this Leafs fan's car.

---

Share |

Link to the latest post