Peter Jensen

Peter Jensen is a Canadian Olympic trainer and sports psychologist. He has worked with Olympians for over 20 years; the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games was his seventh Olympics.

Career Jensen is a sports psychologist who has worked frequently with professional Canadian sports teams. Writing in July 2012 for Torstar News Services, journalist Steve Milton stated that Jensen was "the first sports psychologist officially connected to a Canadian national team (figure skating)".

A native of Toronto, Jensen was raised in a small Quebecan mining city (Rouyn-Noranda) and played several sports including baseball, hockey, and football. He attributed his interest in sports psychology to his youth when he "had a very excitable personality, and learned that my excitability got in the way of performing at my best in certain situations". Since the 1984 Olympics, he has assisted his country's athletes at each subsequent Olympics.

At the 1988 Calgary Olympics, Jensen received more than 160 entreaties from journalists for interviews. The interest in the innovative field of sports psychology stemmed from people's interest in the inner mechanisms of a sportsperson's brain. In a 2008 interview with The Hamilton Spectators Donna Spencer, Jensen said he failed to reply to the entreaties owing to his desire to work in the background.

Jensen served as the athletic director of Glendon College, York University's satellite campus. In 1988, he managed Collingwood's Centre for High Performance. In 1991, he established the consulting company Performance Coaching.

During the 2008 IIHF Women's World Championship, Jensen worked with the Canada women's national ice hockey team, counseling them whenever they had emotional issues. The players sometimes were reluctant to discuss troubles with the coach because the troubles occasionally involved their standing in the team. The players were comfortable with talking to him because he gave them no pressure; he was not their coach, their parents, or Hockey Canada. Before the team traveled to Harbin, People's Republic of China for the world championship, he told the players about how to overcome the difficulties inherent in a change of environment: much traveling and a new time zone. After the team landed in China, he lectured to them about Chinese history to aid them in acclimating to the overseas environment. When the hockey coach noticed a player who seemed downcast, the coach would point out the player to Jensen, implicitly suggesting that he talk with her. Jensen said that he would not disclose the content of his discussions with players because he held trust and confidentiality to be of paramount importance. Becky Kellar-Duke, the team's assistant captain, praised Jensen for helping players "not get so overwhelmed by some of the things". In his 2010 interview with Wilson, he said a "winning mindset" was distinguished by four attributes: "imagery, perspective, time management and focus".