No, most hockey parents are not super aggressive

Although media images of the irate "hockey dad" might suggest otherwise, most hockey fathers - and mothers - seem to value their children's learning experience over their win records, a new study suggests.

In surveys of 123 boys in a youth hockey league and their parents, researchers found that both players and parents put more stock in the skills the boys learned than in whether they outplayed their peers.

In addition, parents' goals were generally similar to those of their children, said lead study author David A. Bergin, an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

The findings, he told Reuters Health, counter the stereotype of the "crazed" hockey father picking fights in the stands and pushing his son to be similarly aggressive, an image fueled by media coverage of certain incidents in recent years - most famously, the case of the Massachusetts hockey father convicted in the beating death of another player's father.

But, as reported in the Journal of Genetic Psychology, the new study found that parents and sons alike were more "task-oriented" than "ego-oriented."

Task-oriented people focus on working hard and building skills, whereas the ego-oriented person is concerned about looking better than others - and may be open to cheating in order to win.

Both types of athletes may want to win, according to Bergin, but winning is not all-consuming for the task-oriented person.

The questionnaires he and his colleague Dr. Steven F. Habusta used gauged parents' and players' goal orientations by asking them the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with various statements-such as, in the case of parents, "I feel my son is most successful in hockey when he is the only one who can do the play or skill."

The surveys, given separately to parents and their 10- to 13-year-old sons, found that task-orientation was more common than ego-orientation among players and parents alike, even when it came to so-called travel teams - which, Bergin explained, are composed of higher-skilled, and potentially more competitive, players.

Given the stereotype of hockey parents, Bergin said the findings that task-orientation beat out ego-orientation and that parents and sons generally agreed in their goals can be viewed as "somewhat reassuring."

SOURCE: Journal of Genetic Psychology, December 2004.