Lefties and Righties

I have three kids. They're all right-handed.

I'm right-handed.

My wife is right-handed too.

On the ice, though... it's three righties and two lefties.

Why?

Generic population statistics indicate that only 10% of the general population is left handed. Feels about right.

But, then, the NHL's trend during my lifetime has shown that roughly 60% of the skaters shoot left which means around 40% shoot right.

Something's not adding up there...

I remember when I first had a hockey stick in my hands, my dad gently steered me towards being a lefty -- something he'd been steered towards but never was able to adapt to. He was born in the late 1940's.

His theory was that it was to secure more left-handed players which, of course, would give Canada an even bigger advantage in international play.

I mean, you look at baseball teams from back then, pre-1940, and the lefty/righty split was relatively close to the generic population 10/90 split.

Following a robust four minutes of research, though, hockey wasn't like that.

The Leafs back then had lefties all over the place...so my dad was wrong.

Seemed like a good theory, though.

Anyway, he tried to get me to be a lefty...and I just couldn't do it.

I'm right handed...I shoot right, I throw right, I bat right, I mini-golf right, I pretend to play guitar right, I write right, and I eat right-handed too.

I tend to vote left though...go figure?

The current explanation, in hockey, is that the dominant hand should be the top hand.

Perhaps that theory and/or instruction dates back to the beginnings of hockey given that the split between right and left handed shots has nearly always been only around 10% apart.

But, yeah, all over the internet, on sites just like this one, you see stickhandling guides saying exactly that.

"The top hand should control the stick, bottom hand is just a loose guide."

We even have a few of those training tools that velcro around your glove so you can't actually grip the stick with the bottom hand.

Might explain why my stickhandling is so bad...I've been doing it backwards for decades.

But all of that aside, I'm still not really buying it.

My "hockey" lefty kids golf lefty. (How come golf has so few lefties?)

One, though, bats right. The other bats left.

For my oldest, I volun-forced him to help with yard work this fall...and he holds a weed whacker like a righty.

And then my "hockey" righty is the kid with the most powerful shot...but, I swear, he rakes leaves as a lefty.

I mean...it's all over the place.

So I don't know about the whole lefty/righty thing in hockey.

Maybe we're trying too hard to find a scientific explanation for something that's mostly just whatever felt comfortable when we first picked up a stick.

I think it's damn near a random personal preference.

Except...lefty sticks are always sold out, I've found. What's up with that?

On the flip side, why are full right goalies so rare?

Legit -- it just doesn't make any sense.

But it does explain why so many of them are inept at handling the puck... If they flipped the glove and blocker, they'd probably excel...

Heather, Henrik, Chris, Emmet, and Duncan Rutsch

Righty, righty, righty, lefty, lefty...but all actually righty.

Chris Rutsch

Hockey Dad

Year round, I spend a significant amount of time and money transporting my three boys to and from freezing cold ice rinks. Not because I expect them to make it to the NHL but because I know the rigorous youth hockey experience will serve them well in the future.