Faster, Harder, Longer

What makes one persons slapshot better than another? Well, if we take” aim” out of the equation then it comes down to two things; stick-on-puck time and recoil time. increase the two of those and you end up with greater velocity on your shot. So says the results of a study examining the “recoil” effect of the ice hockey stick shaft during a stationary slap shot.

A Villasenor, RA Turcotte, and DJ Pearsall, from the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education at McGill University tested nine male adult subjects (four elite and five recreational) . Their performances were evaluated by simultaneously recording stick movement and internal bending from high-speed digital video (1,000 Hz) and puck acceleration from a triaxial accelerometer positioned inside the puck.I n addition, an electrical circuit measured blade-puck contact time.

For the record, the elite players shot the puck at about 12okm/h. The beer-leaguers, about 80 km/h.

Analyzing the data reported on several dependent variables, including final puck velocity, puck acceleration, maximum stick shaft bending (angle and distance deflection), stick shaft angular velocities, blade-puck contact time, and corresponding time events.

The results indicate the following.

Interestingly enough puck acceleration was virtually the same between the two groups. So how did the elite players manage to shoot the puck harder? Well they would have had to accelerate for longer: about 11 milliseconds longer.

Blade-puck contact time was greater for the elite players than for recreational players (38 +/- 9 ms and 27 +/- 5 ms)

How did they do this? They bent their sticks more. The greater the bend means the recoil is greater and therefore spends more time accelerating the puck. 59.8% of blade-puck contact for the elite players was spent recoiling.