“Congratulations on being drafted … Time to Start Planning for Retirement!”: NHL Players’ reflections on post-career planning

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand retired NHL players' perceptions of the most important decisions that need to be made during a playing-career to position themselves for a “happy life” post-NHL career. Indeed, the retired NHL player population is underrepresented within academic literature, and to the extent that researchers have mapped out the decision-making process athletes go through upon retirement (e.g., Park et al., 2012; Eggleston et al., 2020), none have considered the tangible decisions that could be made over the course of a playing-career to build what they perceive as a happy life after retiring from sport, especially in the context of an NHL career. Hence, this study sought to accomplish its purpose through a pragmatic epistemology and a series of qualitative semi-structured interviews with 11 former NHL players who retired between 1995 and 2017. Each semi-structured interview was conducted via the telephone; the collected data was then analyzed using both in-vivo and focused coding strategies. Collectively, these codes were used to visually amalgamate the findings of this study into the Playing-Career Decision Making Model, which illustrated a) how retired NHL players define a happy life post-NHL career; b) the contributing factors during a playing-career to building a happy life; and c) the most important decisions NHL players need to make to prepare for their lives post-NHL career. Further, the findings of this study offer a practical understanding of retirement preparation and decision-making among retired NHL players, emphasizing the need for earlier pre-retirement planning, during a playing-career, to facilitate high-quality outcomes in retirement. Future research should address the subjectiveness of NHL players’ happiness in retirement, including those who do not exclusively reside in North America, and the tangible decisions they deem essential in facilitating a happy life in retirement.