The importance of correct stick flex

Hockey Stick Flex is a measure of how flexible or how stiff a hockey stick is when a force is applied to it. Flex is also referred to as the hockey stick stiffness.

When a player bends his hockey stick when taking a shot, it essentially turns the hockey stick into a spring storing energy. When the spring is released (when the stick unbends and returns to straight), the energy is released and accelerates the puck.

For example, proper slap sot technique is to have the blade strike the ice a few inches before the puck to load the spring of the stick prior the stick striking the puck. As the stick moves forward in its swing, it contacts the puck and snaps forward from being bent to straight again. This same bending and snapping forward also happens with the wrist shot and snaps shots.

Generally you want the stiffest flex stick that you can flex completely to take full advantage of the stick recoil as it snaps the puck forward. If the hockey stick is too stiff then the player won’t be able to bend it and get the extra accelerating effects.  If the flex isn’t stiff enough the hockey stick will bend too much and the accuracy of the shot deteriorates.

Mid flex – Mid kick point, or mid/constant flex, sticks have a more traditional flex that allows the stick to be loaded from the bottom hand. This gives you a larger loading and potentially a higher velocity release. Wooden sticks have a constant flex profile that behaves in this manner.

Low kick points - The kick point is where the shaft flexes when enough pressure is applied to bend it. Composite sticks are often engineered to have low kick points on the shaft for a quicker release. The loading of the stick happens sooner since there is less distance for the stick to bend before it recoils back and whips the puck forward. This lower kick point is often created with shafts that have tapered ends near the blade.

The most common measurements for stick flex are:

Youth = 40 flex Junior = 50 flex Mid or Intermediate flex = 60-75 flex Regular flex = 85 flex Stiff flex = 100 flex Extra stiff = 110 flex

Composite hockey stick flex versus wood hockey stick flex: Does a composite stick flex more than a wood stick? It all depends on how the hockey stick is engineered but the short answers is that a stick flex rating of 100 is the same flex no matter what type of material the hockey stick is made from. The most significant differences between wood and composite stick flex is the flex points which were covered above.

Flex Tester – How Stick Flex Is Measured
Check out the How its Made: Composite Hockey Sticks video to learn a little more about flex testers and to see one in action. The short flex tester segment starts at about 37 seconds into the video.

Testing a Stick’s Flex at the Pro Shop
Use your normal hand position on the stick and hold the stick with the blade on the floor. Now flex the shaft of the stick by holding your top hand stationary and pushing down and forward with your lower hand. You should be able to flex the stick about an inch or so without using full effort. If you can’t flex the stick this much then the flex of the stick is too high.

How Cutting a Stick’s Length Affects its Flex
If you cut too much of the length off of a stick is will significantly increase the flex of the stick. Imagine bending a full length broom stick. Now if you cut that broom stick in half home much force is required to get it to bend the same as the full length stick? A whole lot more that is for sure. This is also what happens when a hockey stick is cut down a significant amount. How much is flex affected by cutting off 2 or 4 inches? Here is a chart that provides ROUGH guideline for how cutting your stick affects its flex.

		Approximate flex when cutting the stick…
	Baseline Flex	2 inches	4 inches
Youth	40	48 flex	54 flex
Junior	50	58 flex	66 flex
Intermediate	65	72 flex	78 flex
Senior	85	95 flex	103 flex
Senior	100	106 flex	113 flex

NOTE: These are just rough values for illustration purpose.
Check here for a more complete Hockey Stick Flex Chart

Another thing to note is that hockey sticks flex in more than one direction. In addition to the shaft flex that we talked about above, there is also a flex that happens with the blade. The blade impact with the puck causes a rotational flex that can also accelerate your shots.

How To Take Advantage Of Stick Flex When Shooting
Here is an excellent video of Alexi Kovalev demonstrating how stick flex works when shooting.

Flex Terms in the Hockey Stick Dictionary

• Flex
• Kick Point

Find the dictionary here Hockey Stick Dictionary

Article from:  http://hockeystickexpert.com/hockey-stick-flex/

2011 - SAIHA - Senior Mens Nationals

I  guess you can call it South Africa's grand stand event when it comes to local ice hockey.


The SA Senior Mens take to the ice this coming September for provincial pride, but more importantly as selections are made for the 2012 SA National Team to travel to Bulgaria for Div2 hockey.


The word on the street is that there will be 5 teams taking part this year, 2 from Cape Town and the 3 club teams from Gauteng's GIHA.


Game schedules should be released soon with the tournament taking place on the weekend of the 24th September 2011. Soon after the tournament the national squad will be announced where preparation will commence for the IIHF Div2 World Championships held in Bulgaria.


Teams that South Africa will be taking on are hosts Bulgaria, Israel, Mexico, Belgium and China. No doubt a tough group, Team SA will be looking to beat at least 2 teams to stay in Division 2 for 2013.

Graf skates for sale

Brand new pair of Graf Supra 709's size 8.5
R3200
Contact to purchase:
Marc @ 0741 700 780 / marc@idragon.co.za

Durban ladies brush with death

Upon leaving the rink in Vaal after the SA Ladies Inter provincials this part weekend a car-full of Durban hockey players left via car to return to the coast.

Before they knew it, a male driver jumped a red light and collided with them, leaving a wreck of a car and some banged up hockey players. Two injuries reported with a broken hand of one of the passengers and the driver with damage to her knee cap and leg needing to be stabilized.

We are thankful that they are still with us and hope they recover from this terrible accident.

Jagr back from KHL.... Video from NHL.com

Jagr back from KHL....

The Philadelphia Flyers have signed Jaromir Jagr, the club announced via their official Twitter feed Friday afternoon. TSN reports it is a one-year contract worth $3.3 million.

Jagr hasn't played in the NHL since the 2007-08 season with the New York Rangers. He played the last three seasons in the KHL. 

"There's a reason why there was so much interest and hype about him in the free agent market, because he's a good player," said Max Talbot, who also signed a five-year contract with the Flyers on Friday. "He showed the world at the World Championship that he can definitely play. I remember playing against him and he was one of the guys that was always toughest to play against. He was so big and controlled the puck in the corner and made the right play. Just a great signing for the Flyers." 

Jagr was reportedly being wooed by several teams, but both the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings pulled their one-year contract offers off the table Friday morning, opening the door for Jagr to sign with the Flyers.

The 39-year-old Jagr is ninth all-time in the NHL in scoring with 1,599 points, just 42 behind Joe Sakic. He has played in 1,273 NHL games over 17 seasons, including the first 11 in Pittsburgh, where he won the Stanley Cup twice, the Hart Trophy, the Art Ross Trophy five times and the Lester B. Pearson Award four times.

He was also a finalist for the Hart Trophy five times, including in 2006 with the Rangers. The last time Jagr played in North America was at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where he was the flag bearer for the Czech Republic. He won gold at the 1998 Olympics and bronze at the 2006 Games.

Superstitions - a little closer to home

With the previous post about the top 10 hockey superstitions I thought about commenting a little closer to home. Some of you, if you play hockey you would notice that superstitions or rituals become natural and almost second nature...

Either with or without thought, one day a player does something a certain way and for some or other reason, it sticks... Either his team wins or he has amazing game scoring the game winner, and this is the beginning of a ritual or superstition in the making.

Players right here in South Africa too have the oddest rituals, some having to tape their stick before every game and often during every period, others have to put on a certain skate first, some wear a red g-string under their padded pants, others like to sit in their skates for 10 minutes before they kit up, more of a warm up but a few stick-handle a golf ball for 5 mins....

The pan-ultimate I guess is players that dare not wash their lucky under-kit or jock-strap, now you may think that "Thats cool, if thats his thing" but you have to feel for the players that have to sit either side of him.

I guess this is all part of the game that is made up of tons of history and been played by great athletes and we are the lucky ones that get to naturally follow in their superstitious ways like dirty underwear, throwing up before every game and standing on the same side of the goal-net as a pre-game ritual...

 

Hockey superstitions

For as long as the game has been around, so have hockey superstitions. Have a look at the top 10 as posted by www.thehockeynews.com:

10. Tape two
As the most important instrument in all of hockeydom, the stick has been doctored and babied for decades. With the coming of composite sticks, the doctoring has slowed. But players still insist on taping their sticks in a specific manner. 

9. The cookie toss
Glenn Hall is one of the NHL’s all-time greatest goalies; 502 consecutive games in an era before goalie masks were the norm, three Vezina Trophies, 407 wins. But Hall vomited before every game and believed he’d lose if didn’t. 

8. The march 
On every team, there’s an order to which players leave the dressing room for the ice; whether it’s the captain first, the starting goalie last or a veteran tapping each player with his stick, it happens the same way every game.

7. Gearing up
Every player has his own rhyme and reason for the seemingly random practice. Do it just so or start all over.

6. One final stop
The legendary Ken Dryden would never leave the net during warmup until he had made one final save. But playing for the powerhouse Canadiens in the 1970s meant that was not always easy. Larry Robinson picked up on it and took to making sure Dryden had an easy one to stop if the goalie was having problems. But Dryden figured Robinson out and began to work even harder to make that final save before Robinson lobbed an easy one his way.

5. OK, but it’ll cost you a buck
At the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, Canada won men’s hockey gold for the first time since 1952. And at center ice was buried a Canadian one-dollar coin. Burying a ‘loonie’ at center ice for international competitions has since become a superstition, albeit one other countries are not overly enthralled with.

4. The tobacco toss
In no way are we advocating smoking – not that you could now in most arenas anyway – but there were few more masculine-looking superstitions than Stan Mikita tossing his cigarette over his left shoulder as he exited the tunnel for the ice at the old Chicago Stadium.

3. Conversing with iron
Goalies are weird. Period. And Patrick Roy is one of the weirdest in recent memory. He had a number of superstitions, including carrying on running conversations with every goalie’s best on-ice friends, the goal posts.

2. Grow baby, grow
It’s believed the Islanders began the playoff beard superstition during their Stanley Cup run in the 1980s. It worked, too. They won four Cups in four years, the last in 1983.

1. Don’t touch that
There’s only one trophy teams want. And to touch another en route to the Cup is anathema until (gasp!) this year. We’ll know soon if this superstition is proven false.

Playoffs back on track

With the Cape Town Playoff League taking great shape since its commencement earlier this year and 3 games already been played, the Penguins vs Storm have become a great success in the "entertainment" category for sports enthusiasts.

As the series currently stands with Penguins in the lead 2 games to 1, you can be damn sure that the Storm team are planning their attack and Game4, this coming Monday, is going to be NO walk in the park for the Penguins.

This pic taken from Game1, shows Storm #17 Ivan Tchekashkine (Rus) beating Penguins defenceman Grant Yates and getting a shot off on goaltender Lloyd Schlutter who easily "gloved" it to keep the Pengiuns in the game.

However Team Storm ended up taking this game 6-5 and with the Penguins losing Marc Giot and Chris Reeves due to equipment malfunction and injury.



There has been a massive response from the local players as this league has instantly "upped" the level of the game and created such a rivalry between the 2 teams and the players, "actually something to play for now" as mentioned by many of the players.

With a guaranteed R15 000 cash prize for the winning team plus a portion of the door takings for the season, both teams are going to be working really hard to ensure that they get to "drink" from the winning cup come the end of year function and prize giving and to top it off a handy cash incentive for those lucky 15 who take the series.




This photo from Game2 show the Penguins team coming back after a play up the ice and finishing on the Storm goaltender. A team effort and the smiles on the faces with a much deserved scoreline for them but sadly not for the Storm players who went down 12 - 4 as they clearly missed their absent players.




The next game will be taking place this coming Monday, 18th July at 7:30pm. Tickets are available at computicket via this link http://www.computicket.com/web/event/wp_ice_hockey_premier_league/413500719/referer:highlights-index-5-2-0-grid

And last but not least, a thank you to photographers Alexander Paizee, Junaid Samaai and Addinall Roman for assisting with awesome pics from all the games.

Marc Giot (me) with wrist shot from blue line - Game3

Visit the official Playoffs website at http://www.wpicehockey.co.za/theplayoffs.htm

2011 SAIHA Ladies Nationals

So far this year there has been alot of ice hockey action, from the Senior Mens Div 3 held in Cape Town in April to the under14, 16 and 18's nationals recently held also in Cape Town this past June.

And now it is time for the Ladies to take to the ice and showcase their talents for the SA selector panel that will be keeping a close eye on the upcoming games this 15 - 17 July 2011. Their tournament will be hosted by the GIHA (Gauteng Ice Hockey Association) and the games will be played at the newly opened Vaal ice rink (old school hockey rink - no glass, netting around rink, but good solid ice and an enjoyable place to play)

Sadly and due to lack of players, there will be combined teams taking part to up the level of the game and to accommodate "numbers" in each team. The Gauteng Scorpions and Sabres will be joining forces along with the coastal teams Natal and Western Province and the third team will be the Pretoria Warriors.

The schedule will be as follows:

Game1 : Friday, 16:00 - Coastal vs Warriors

Game2 : Saturday, 07:00 - Sabres/Scorpions vs Coastal

Game3 : Saturday, 16:00 - Warriors vs Sabres Scorpions

The Sunday will be an All Star game featuring 2 mixed teams selected by the joint coaching panel, this will allow coaches to see additional player combinations and assist with SA selections.

We wish all the ladies the best of luck for the upcoming Ladies Nationals and "May the Best team look good and win" :)

Ducks' Teemu Selanne has surgery

Anaheim Ducks forward Teemu Selanne's decision on whether to return for an 18th NHL season could be delayed after the forward underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee Thursday.

Selanne's agent, Don Baizley, confirmed to The Orange County Register that Selanne had surgery in Finland but did not offer any other specifics about the injury. The Ducks also confirmed Selanne underwent surgery.

Ducks general manager Bob Murray did not want to speculate about the surgery but hinted that the procedure was more exploratory, according to the report.

Selanne, who turns 41 on Sunday, became an unrestricted free agent Friday.

After the Ducks were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs in April, Selanne did not give any indication about his plans.

"I'll let you know when I know something," Selanne told ESPNLosAngeles.com. "I'll just wait and see how I feel. I don't have to rush."

Selanne had reconstructive knee surgery in 2004-05, when the NHL was in a lockout.

Selanne had 31 goals and 80 points in 73 games last season. In his career, he has scored 637 goals and recorded 1,340 points in 1,259 games.

Selanne's former linemate, Paul Kariya, announced his retirement Wednesday. Kariya missed all of the 2010-11 season because of post-concussion symptoms and was still unable to play because of damage to his brain.