Aside from speed, what attributes do players lose as they age?

[CashMash]

Unfortunately, players get old. We have all seen it. Malkin, Crosby, and Ovechkin are not as good as they once were. Aside from speed, what is it that make players lose the "it"-factor. Why are they no longer the most dangerous guy on the ice?

I suspect one answer could be reflexes, but I am unsure just how big of a factor that is. What things do you look at when you watch old highlights and think, "Wow! He could no longer do that."

Click to read more...

 

[Filthy Dangles]

Pretty much everything goes and declines with age. But more notably: Burst/power, stamina/recovery, and hands/general coordination.

 

[tfwnogf]

At age 25 we reach our peak in most areas, after that our brains slowly start to resemble your avatar

 

[missionAvs]

Hair

 

[SheldonJPlankton]

Pain.

The more things hurt, the less motivated one is to push the limits.

 

[HockeyVirus]

I think players lose a lot of drive. They have the drive still of course, takes a lot to play at that level as you age. But it is a different kind, trying to cling on to your abilities. When they are a young kid, the drive is to just be the best at hockey.

A guy at 35 with wife and kids, has already made 98% of their career earnings and already solidified any legacy, what is left aside from trying to preserve their ego?

 

[DitchMarner]

I think hockey IQ is really the only thing that can improve with age. Maybe vision as well.

 

[LemonSauceD]

Reaction time, strength (especially those who have suffered many injuries), and quite literally physically limitations. It just takes longer for your body to distribute oxygen to the necessary muscles and tissues aka VO2 max. It’s also a mental battle. Everyone around you is faster, stronger and younger and sometimes not being able to compete at the same level of intensity can be a challenge because it takes longer to recover while having to work twice as hard to maintain muscle mass. Athletes peak around 27-32 and VO2 max decreases about 1-5% every year, although not linear.

Slow twitch muscle fibres generally stay the same, but fast twitch muscle fibres shrink in size with age, which can affect explosiveness and obviously speed.

Wear and tear. Injuries, pain, fatigue, age all cause reduced flexibility in the joints and tendons which affect how quickly signals travel from brain to the nerve fibres in muscles and tissues, which directly correlates to a decrease in reaction time and hindering of reflexes. In hockey, this can be seen with the inability to protect pucks/getting knocked off the puck easily, not being able to get a quick shot off while in stride, decrease in puck control which affects split second decision making (arms and wrists aren’t able to use full extent of it’s range), and most importantly, skating.

 

[LeafGrief]

Ability to recover. From games, from workouts, from injuries. The body's ability to heal itself fades as we age, and the absolute grind of an 82-game season plus playoffs wears older players down.

 

[Brodeur]

I suspect one answer could be reflexes, but I am unsure just how big of a factor that is. What things do you look at when you watch old highlights and think, "Wow! He could no longer do that."

When I saw the thread title, I immediately thought of "reflexes" with regards to goalies and I'm always reminded of this one unnamed scout who predicted Ed Belfour would age a bit more gracefully than Curtis Joseph. This was when CuJo left Toronto and Belfour was signed as his replacement. The scout felt that Belfour was more technically sound whereas CuJo relied more on his reflexes which the scout thought would decline.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Hair

Damn you. I wanted to be the first to make this dad joke.

 

[JPT]

Ability to tolerate locker room music

 

[GMR]

How far they can shoot their shot.

 

[GeeoffBrown]

I feel like a big one would be being less competitive. Like if you've got two kids and a dog or whatever, they're probably your main priority and hockey second

 

[Lshap]

First to say "Reflexes"!


Dammit....

 

[Mirka the Turka]

One thing you do gain is experience, teach those 18 year olds a thing or two

 

[nbwingsfan]

I think players lose a lot of drive. They have the drive still of course, takes a lot to play at that level as you age. But it is a different kind, trying to cling on to your abilities. When they are a young kid, the drive is to just be the best at hockey.

A guy at 35 with wife and kids, has already made 98% of their career earnings and already solidified any legacy, what is left aside from trying to preserve their ego?

I forget which player it was but an ex NHL player said that in an interview.

Once kids start coming into the picture, your off season training becomes second fiddle to spending well needed time with your family for most players

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

This is a hot take:

While I 100% agree that hockey IQ is the least likely to be lost as you age and can even be improved (Ekholm being a prime example), I do think it's possible for a player to lose hockey IQ as well. Alzner's physical skills and his decision-making all deteriorated as he aged.

 

[DitchMarner]

This is a hot take:

While I 100% agree that hockey IQ is the least likely to be lost as you age and can even be improved (Ekholm being a prime example), I do think it's possible for a player to lose hockey IQ as well. Alzner's physical skills and his decision-making all deteriorated as he aged.

They should call that phenomenon Alzheimer's.

 

[Crow]

Pain.

The more things hurt, the less motivated one is to push the limits.

Never felt that pain tolerance changed for me personally. How old are you if you don’t mind me asking? Is this a personal experience or something you’ve read about?

 

[Rodgerwilco]

I think one thing a lot of people overlook when it comes to aging athletes is energy, drive, and recovery time from wear and tear.

Of course we have less energy and stamina as we age. I would imagine it's hard to keep the same emotional drive level at 38 as you had at 28, and even harder to get to the drive you had at 18... A bump that may have been a minor annoyance a guy would get over in a day can become a big hindrance that lingers for a week or more.

 

[2CHAINZ]

Virility

 

[kingsholygrail]

Amount and term on contracts?

 

[triggrman]

Pain.

The more things hurt, the less motivated one is to push the limits.

I mean there's some truth here. I stopped playing when my recovery's lasted the full week.

 

[SheldonJPlankton]

Never felt that pain tolerance changed for me personally. How old are you if you don’t mind me asking? Is this a personal experience or something you’ve read about?

I'm in my late 50's. Personal experience.

It's not so much a change in pain tolerance as it is in pain quantity...if that makes sense.

You start out and pretty much everything works as intended and pushing the limits is easier. When you get hurt, it's quicker to heal and you heal more effectively.

After a while, your body slows down. Old injuries start to become arthritic. New injuries take longer to heal and you heal less fully. Your ceiling drops...what was once possible becomes out of reach...and your recovery time expands far beyond what it was as a young adult.

Eventually, you are either too hurting to put in top effort, or too wary of getting hurt to put in top effort. You reach pain saturation.