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COLUMBUS -- Ifyou build it theywill come, and ifyou doubt it youwill lose.

Those are thegolden ruleswhen creating afield of dreams orescaping anightmarishslump - take itfrom some guys

who know a thingor two aboutnavigating thedark, troubled waters of futility.

On a five-game losing streak with six games left to play on theirroad trip, the Edmonton Oilers looked like they were starting outon a death march that would sewer their season by mid-November.

Then, as suddenly as the losing started, it stopped. Back-to-backwins over Carolina and Philadelphia helped them sidestep acomplete disaster.

How did they right the ship? Good question.

"When a slump gets to four or five, that's a lot of games to lose ina row," said Oilers captain Ethan Moreau. "That's when you needveterans making sure everybody has the right mind-set becauseif you don't it can get pretty ugly. No matter how bad it is, it canalways get worse."

It's been a season of fits and starts for the Oilers - four straightwins, followed by five straight losses, followed by two straightwins. Momentum swings are clearly a factor, so knowing how tostay on the right side of them is crucial.

Slump busting 101Oilers learn lessons about momentum

Everything you need toget ready for school.

Back to School

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And not getting sucked into the vortex of gloom when you've lostfour or five in a row is vital to survival.

"When you're losing, you want to reel it in as fast as you can,"said Fernando Pisani. "But if it doesn't happen, you can't getdown, you can't get negative or you end up feeling like you'retrying to skate uphill, fighting every stride, fighting every puckand every pass. You have to make sure you still keep a positiveattitude coming to the rink or you're never going to get out of it."

Easier said than done when every pass seems a little off andevery shot that's heading for a corner hits the post, and all youhear all day is how bad you are, and all anyone with amicrophone or notepad wants to know is why the hockey club issuch a terrible mess.

"You have to be mentally strong," said Pisani. "It's obviously partof the game for people to ask questions, but you have to bestrong enough mentally to put that behind you and correct whatyou need to correct.

"We have the mentality in that dressing room that no matter thesituation, we don't get down on ourselves."

As tempted as a coach is to crack the whip after a few losses, hemust be careful not to make the situation worse.

"As a coach you want to increase the pressure as the losses pileup, but at the same time you don't want your players tight - it's afine line to walk," said Craig MacTavish. "There are a few thingsyou have to have every night, which is the effort and the smarts.And you try and rationalize the rest, the things you can't control."

Why does a guy shoot 84 at the golf course one day and 94 atthe same course the next? A couple of bad breaks, a little doubtcreeps in and boom, you suck. It can be the same in hockey.

"It's a product of the NHL right now," said MacTavish. "There'sprobably four or five very elite teams out of 30, and there's abunch of us who are looped together and on any given night abreak either way can turn it. If you're playing with someconfidence you're going to win hockey games and if you'relacking some confidence it's enough to swing the game."

They say experiences like these - how to deal with a slump andhow to work your way out of one - are good lessons for all theyounger players in the room.

"They see how you react in the dressing room," said Pisani. "Ifthey see that we're not getting down on guys and making adifficult situation worse, then young guys will see this is how itworks, this is what it means to be a professional."

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.and all teams have form slumps at some stage. Detecting them may be easier than overcoming them butare some approaches that may be useful,is as easier task when the team is winning; you earn your coaching skills when team is losing.should aim to install coaching strategies that achieve consistency in performance.be identified even in lost games e.g. if new strategies were being trialed.

addressing form slumps;whether the players are flat:

a sports psychologist helpone to one talks with individualsgroup discussions e.9. with the mid-field playersfrom the playersprioritiesgoalsthat their personal lives are in orderplayers may be down in performanceplayers may lead to fluctuating performances; a strategy is needed to achieve consistencythey over training?they under training?

it time to introduce some variations e.g. workload, play in different spots.their fitness levels appropriate?your practice sessions have real purpose?your sessions have the appropriate levels of intensity?physiological data may assist in making assessments do not overlook the accuracy of "coach's eye" and your gutactical problems?the players capable of executing the system in placepart of the team strategy e.g. poor defence; lack of counter attack; goal chances not being created?they have a complete understanding of their role?players have the specific skill needed for their role e.g. speed?an overall low level of skill that becomes exposed at higher levels?so, does this require a change in training drills?

solutions include:practice of specific drills;decision making situations that are based on game situations;techniquesphase plays that transfer readily to match situations

ERCOMING A SLUMP-a slump is really another description of "under achieving"

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Ways:Busting27 , 7999

Gregory "Graig" WhitePhysical Fitness Advisormorning I was in the weight room and one of my athletes came in looking sad. I asked her, "What's up?are you looking so sad?" She said to me that she was upset because she felt like she was in a slump.asked me, "What's the best way to get out of a slump?" I thought about it for a minute and said to her,get into one."may sound really simplistic, but stay with me and I'll show you that it may not be that simplistic at all.an athlete and coach, I know that confidence comes from being prepared. Great players work hard tosure that they are prepared for any situation that may come up during a game.it comes to "Slump Busting", the first thing an athlete needs is a goal, When a good solid game plan isplace, the wins will outnumber the losses, When deciding what the goal should be, there are a few thingskeep in mind. First, write down the goal and put it somewhere you can see it. Athletes function better withclues. The second thing that an athlete needs to do is to create a time frame for him or her to reachgoal. Doing this will help them become more conscious of reaching it.

component to concentrate on is their physical conditioning. When training, a person owes it toto see that their best effort was put forth every training session. This will go a long way inthe confidence needed to stay away from any slump.impoftant aspect is making sure that the athlete has their basic sports skills down. When athletesa slump, they need to go start from square one and analyze their ability to executeskills. The athlete might be surprised by what they find.

out of a slump is a job that coaches wish they didn't have to do, but if a person is in thelong enough they will eventually have to deal with it.

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Justin Bournes Blog: The art of slump-busting

Sidney Crosby has 29 points in 20 playoff games, but

has only one with a minus-2 rating through threeStanley Cup final games. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/GettyImages)

Justin Bourne

2009-06-05 09:50:00

Related Links

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Sidney Crosby player page

Playoff scoring leaders

Slumps are a bitch.

After Game 2, the media tried to proclaim Sidney Crosbystwo-game drought a slump. It isnt. The guy hit posts,pads, pants, people and pillows in Games 1 and 2, but the

damn thing just wouldnt go in. As Ive been listening tothe sports networks use his stats as the story, rather than

to illuminate the story, I got thinking about actual slumps.

Did I mention theyre a bitch?

Attempting to break out of a slump is freaking impossible,and, as a player, if I could give you a successful method,Id be a rich man.

I went through stretches of great success in college and

pro hockey, tying together point streaks of double digitgames on multiple occasions. As you may have guessed, I also went through stretches of great misery, tying togetherstreaks of wall-punching and pulling my hair out at the root for double-digit gameson multiple occasions.

The standard song and dance about slump breaking is, in my opinion, what prolongs them.

Keep it simple. Shoot from everywhere.

Garbage.

Nothing twists the knife in your already-stabbed confidence like a goalie casually gloving down your shot from leftfield that you only took because technically, that spot by the boards at the blueline fell under the category of

everywhere.

The only known antidote for the slump sickness, of course, is to work so hard Rod BrindAmour looks lazy.

It takes a couple games of driving the net, hovering around the crease and generally playing violently before a shot

from the point redirects off the bridge of your nose and goes in for you to get back to normal.

As far as slumps go, a few games wouldnt be a huge deal. The problem is there are stages of slump denial, which

tend to add extra games to it before you realize youre mired in one.

For starters, theres the Bad Luck phase:

Ha, what a lucky save.

I cant believe that hit both posts.

If another puck bounces over my stick around the net Im going to sacrifice a goat to the hockey gods.

The Blame Placing phase is only a few steps behind. Sadly, some players never get out of this one. Theyre

convinced their whole career was on the same path as Sid the Kid had they not had this awful nine-year stretch of

bad luck.

My linemates are awful.

Im not getting enough power play time.

This ice is horrific.

As the sad, slumpy realization sinks in, superstition becomes the only

friend to turn to.

You start taping your stick with white instead of black. You stop playing two-touch soccer with the boys before thegame. You even write something different on the knob end of your stick, something usually along the lines of WWJD.

As the slump shovel hits bedrock, thoughts on the home front start to drift, potentially all the way into, maybe Imjust not good enough territory, highlighted by such classics as:

I really should finish that degree.

I could probably work for my sister-in-laws husband.

And:

#$%$ @#!$#ing &%@#!

But just then, just as youre about to re-drywall your bedroom and commit career suicide, a puck goes in. And not atwo-on-one, fake-pass snapper off the post snipe-type goal. Always some dumb, I cant believe it was that easyfreebie-type goal.

And so the pendulum swings.

When I think about real slumps, I cant imagine The Kid is too concerned about his play. Hard work is in that guysbone marrow. I highly doubt hes rounding up too many goats these days.

In fact, if I had to guess, Id wager I really should finish that degree has never formed as a sentence during any ofhis mini-slumps.

I have a feeling Sids mental state is juuust fine.

Justin Bourne plays for the Idaho Steelheads of the ECHL. He excelled with the University of Alaska Anchorage beforegoing on to spend time in the Islanders organization with Bridgeport and Utah. His father, Bob, spent 14 years in the