[heep223]

EDIT: Sorry for the O/T, I'm drunk. GFG I'm guaranteeing a win tonight

Interesting. I don't know if I agree re: the article in terms of the dominant hand being most effective on top. You stick handle and shoot primarily with your bottom hand, the top hand is more of a guide.

But the advent of curved blades in the ’60s not only spelled the end of the classic backhand shot, it also meant that manufacturers had to label sticks L and R, and inventory personnel had to ship more left-handed sticks (with the blade curving to the right) to Canada and more right-handed ones to the United States.
“I have no idea why this is so,” said Mike Mountain, who is in charge of hockey sticks for Easton, a sporting goods manufacturer based in Van Nuys, Calif. “But it has been true for years, and it doesn’t change; it stays consistent over time.”

The difference even trickles over into golf, where the swing is not unlike that of a slap shot. According to the Professional Golfers Association, 7 percent of Canadian golfers play left-handed, which is proportionally more than any other nationality. The reason is probably that Canadians pick up a hockey stick first and are therefore imprinted by the time they take up golf. Especially if they are from Quebec, where hockey players are even more left-handed than players in the rest of Canada.

“The top hand on a hockey stick has to be able to handle the torques of a stick while the bottom hand just has to handle the weight with no torques,” he wrote. He theorized that American children, who tend to take up hockey when they are older and bigger, can afford to put the stronger hand, generally the right, on the lower part of the shaft for more precision.

A lot of experts would argue, however, that having the dominant hand on top makes for better control and stick-handling.

A 2006 study found that 60 percent of all National Hockey League forwards were left-handed, as were 70 percent of all N.H.L. defensemen, but those statistics were not sorted by nationality.
Three players with Team U.S.A. said they had not noticed the discrepancy until it was brought to their attention Monday.
“I noticed a lot of righties when I was growing up, but now I see a lot of lefties,” said Ryan Suter, who plays for the Nashville Predators and shoots left-handed.

There are oddities, too. For example, all the regulars on the New Jersey Devils’ defense corps — three Americans, four Canadians and a Finn — shoot left-handed. For every left-handed-shooting Wayne Gretzky, there is a right-handed-shooting Mario Lemieux. The career top-scoring American, Mike Modano, shoots left. His predecessor as the Americans’ top career scorer, Joe Mullen, shot right.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/sp...s/16lefty.html

Also interesting, it seems like of course Canadians have it right over Americans when it comes to hockey, and right handed people should shoot left.

This is probably why I'm playing beer league and not in the NHL.

Handedness and NHL success
As a whole, about 64 percent of NHL players shoot left and 36 percent shoot right -- and both groups are creepily identical: They are 6-foot-1, 196 pounds. They are drafted, on averaged, 127th overall. And their statistical performance is nearly identical as well.


Except there's just one difference: how quickly they reach the NHL.
Left shots reach the NHL a tad bit quicker than right shots. It's not by much -- left shots make it to the league in about 2.4 years, while right shots get there in 2.6 years. But in every other category, the two sides are identical. So why is there a disparity in development time?


Well, first we have to remember that 89 percent of the world is right-handed, and the ratio is probably similar among hockey players. If that's the case, 89 percent of them should be shooting left to optimize their skill development. But that's not the case. Only 64 percent of them shoot left. This means the majority of right shots are actually right-handed. And as Christiansen pointed out, there is a disadvantage to shooting with your strong hand because you don't develop as complete of a game. So shooting the "wrong way" -- with your dominant hand on the bottom of the stick -- seems to slow development time, although it seems right-handers shooting right are talented enough to get to the NHL and be just as good as the players who shoot with their weak hand.

insider.espn.go.com/blog/nhl-draft/insider/post?id=143