Is hockey just a game? Contesting meanings of the ice hockey life projects through a career-threatening injury

ABSTRACT

This study is situated within an existential–narrative theoretical framework to examine the impact of career-threatening injury on professional ice hockey players’ well-being and career construction. Professional ice hockey culture is construed as a privileged space characterised by hegemonic masculinity, fierce competition as well as high-risk behaviours often resulting in sports injuries. In this paper, we analyse two players’ life stories with a particular focus on injury as a boundary situation involving social and temporal breakdown and re-evaluation of meaning of sporting life projects. Emergent narratives surrounding existential themes of loss of meaning and loneliness in the face of injury were analysed in connection with players’ search for authenticity and realignment with self-concept. Each player developed resistant narratives to the dominant ethos of professional sport in order to restore well-being and sense of self. The relational aspects of injury are highlighted in practical recommendations.

KEYWORDS:

• Athletic injury
• professional sport
• life story
• existentialism
• narrative

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant to Tatiana V. Ryba by the Danish Ministry of Culture (Kulturministeriet): [TKIF2011-021].