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For McInnis, it was a piece of plywood on the side of his father’s barn. That’s when he fired his rich collection of pucks through the glass — or rather, through the wire fence — of his father’s rink.
“I needed something to do over the summer,” McInnis said. “We were shooting pucks all summer long. It was just something we did for fun. Of course, we always had dreams that maybe one day we could play in the NHL, but it was just something we did for fun. I never thought it would come true.
“I did it all the time. Whenever I got tired of being on the beach or riding my bike for a long time, I would just shoot the puck. That’s when I started developing my shot.”
It would be a rare sound, about once every 20 or 25 times, that would come from the stick and startle him.
He would think that would be a big deal.
“But when you look back, you realize there was a lot more to it, but you didn’t think about it at the time,” McInnis said. “Weight transfer is a big part of it. Core strength is a big part of that. For me, the stick itself, the shaft has to have the right flex.”
* * * *
stick. Ah, stick.
MacInnis focused on the wooden stick. Chara believed that moving to composites would change everything. Chara used a 155 flex stick that was mind blowing with its stiffness. Frk uses 70 flex.
There is more than one path to Slapshot.
“The key elements that must work together include the player’s ability to manipulate arms, wrists, legs, feet, body weight, stick curvature and timing before hitting the puck,” Vancil wrote. “The more a particular stick bends, the faster it will return to its original position. The greater the stick’s flex number, the more potential energy it can store for a given amount of bending.
“Synchronizing all these elements clearly requires great skill, similar to that of a symphony orchestra conductor.”
Therefore, each Slapshot may be slightly different.
“My stick is very flexible, so I try to put my body into it and lean into it,” Frk said. “The flex is obviously lower, so the stick does the work, so there’s more power behind it. So I’m hoping the stick doesn’t break when I make the shot. If it doesn’t break, I can put my whole body into it. You can definitely generate a lot of power.”
Vancouver Canucks forward Elias Pettersson, on the other hand, usually uses 87, but his highest score was 102.
“I know that as I got stronger in recent years, I had to increase my flex because I wanted my stick to be faster,” Pettersson said. “I don’t want it to be like a whip, like a long flex-up. I want the whip to be fast, very fast, responsive. Harder.”
For Chara, the sticks have made a huge difference. Back in McInnis’ heyday, the bullish 19-year-old, who was still playing with a wooden stick and working on his wrist shot, found his stride when he came to the Western Hockey League from his native Slovakia in 1996-1997. . And his cane.
“We went from wooden sticks to composite sticks,” Chara said. “I think when I was hitting slap shots, it was the first time the goalies saw the puck come out of the net. It was crazy. That was a huge improvement.
“For me, holding a wooden stick was heavy. I couldn’t get enough stiffness with a wooden stick. It was always flimsy and heavy, but with composites, the weight and stiffness I could handle. When I put it in, I was able to score almost from the red line.
“The puck was just invisible.” [goalies]. … They were playing the puck like it was in front of them and already in the net. ”
MacInnis found the opposite.
“When composite sticks first came out, I tried them and didn’t like them at all,” he said. “In my shots, I noticed that the torque from the wooden blade created extra speed and I could get a few extra miles per hour.The blade has torque and movement, and that comes from both the blade and the shaft. Because he was coming.”
“With composite sticks today, it’s all coming from the shaft. Those blades, you can’t move those blades. It’s like concrete.”
* * * *
Chara is 6-foot-9 and 250 pounds. Weber is 6-4, 230 pounds. Pettersson is 6-2, 176 pounds.
Yes, size matters. But that’s not all.
“They’re usually tall and pretty muscular. Usually it’s a defenseman,” Ache said. “But then you’ll have other smaller players that can shoot very fast. They have very good technique.”
In 2023, Pettersson hit a 163.2 mph bomb to earn Hardest Shot honors. That was comparable to Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman’s award-winning 163.2 mph shot the year before.
Pettersson began practicing his slap shot after being selected No. 5 by the Vancouver Canucks in the 2017 NHL Draft. He spent the next season with Växjö of the Swedish Hockey League, where he focused on his shot.
“It’s all about timing,” Pettersson said. “I didn’t have big muscles, so it’s all about rotational speed and weight transfer. If you compare it to a golf swing, you want to build momentum and let the club follow you. That’s what I want to do. You want to clear the hip and get the stick as quickly and as hard as possible at the contact point.”
And because of his technique, he was able to defy his size and compete against people who were 50 or 60 pounds heavier than him.
“The basic physics is that you have a rotating body, which is a player, and it collides with the stationary puck,” Ashe said. “There’s basic physics there. That’s where the math comes in. When a larger object collides with a smaller object, the larger the object, the faster the smaller object will travel. You can’t avoid that. .”
However, you need to be careful here. The faster a moving object moves, the faster it will collide.
“That’s where body strength and mass come in handy,” he continued. “So you might have someone who’s bigger than you but isn’t as fast and doesn’t have the muscle mass to accelerate to the speed you want. He’s not going to shoot as hard. ”
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