Where do you use your dominant hand?

[thefelixculpa 0]

I was so young when I started playing so I can't remember how it felt to learn how to hold your stick/stick handle/shoot...I've just always played with dominant hand on the bottom.

When I fool around and try to play with my dominant hand on top, am I feeling what someone who has never played hockey before feels the first time they pick up a stick? It feels so foreign....I feel so clumsy. If that is what it feels like to new players, I should start to be more empathetic.

[IrishHockey 0]

my dominant right hand is my lower hand and my left hand grips the top,strange i know but here in Ireland all the kids play a stick sport called hurling and der is onli right handed sticks for that,so almost everyhockey player here shoots right handed

[ubitsa 0]

I'm still amazed how people don't get it. People that are Right Handed are generally supposed to play lefty. Why? It's about stick-handling, not shooting. On puck-handling, the top hand is the control wrist while the lower wrist is only supplementary.

I've also found I'm much more accurate in snapping my top hand more and using my bottom hand for guidance. The claims that the dominant hand being lower means you shoot harder is incredibly short sighted. If you're too lazy to either do wrist curls or practice shooting to even out your forearm/wrist strength, then you shouldn't be playing hockey to begin with.

Why do 2 of 3 Nhl'ers shoot lefty? It's not random chance. The fact that we as Americans aren't getting proper instruction on which hand to hold the stick with is killing us. It makes stick-handling a mystery for kids. A hockey stick is not a baseball bat, it has totally different mechanics and technique, wake up people!

Using your dominant hand on top doesn't equal "proper instruction"...there have been absolutely tons of examples of right handed players playing right handed...and I don't think it hindered their careers at all. Lemieux comes to mind...and I doubt his hockey upbringing would be considered incorrect. He was a hell of a stickhandler too...and yes, I know he was a freak, but there are millions of other examples. As far as I'm concerned, it's personal preference. If not for starting kids out from such a young age and training them so much to be a certain way, I think most players would play right handed...because in a sport like baseball, where if anything, there is more reason to be left handed in terms of batting, most players are right handed, and there are definite similarities between hockey and baseball. Being stronger in your right hand or foot in many cases, isn't about "strength" anyway; it's about coordination and the fluidity of motion in that arm or leg. My left arm isn't weak at all, but when I try to throw a baseball I look like a freaking retard and can't throw it anywhere...it's about coordination, not strength. If you just gave a kid a hockey stick and he didn't get forced or encouraged to play one way or another, and wasn't influenced by watching others, odds are he's going to pick it up and play right handed....that's just the way it is. At the end of the day, I don't believe it matters whether you play left or right handed based on your natural handedness...the level of training makes it all irrelevant. Neither way is incorrect.

[J-Shera 0]

I'm still amazed how people don't get it. People that are Right Handed are generally supposed to play lefty. Why? It's about stick-handling, not shooting. On puck-handling, the top hand is the control wrist while the lower wrist is only supplementary.

I've also found I'm much more accurate in snapping my top hand more and using my bottom hand for guidance. The claims that the dominant hand being lower means you shoot harder is incredibly short sighted. If you're too lazy to either do wrist curls or practice shooting to even out your forearm/wrist strength, then you shouldn't be playing hockey to begin with.

Why do 2 of 3 Nhl'ers shoot lefty? It's not random chance. The fact that we as Americans aren't getting proper instruction on which hand to hold the stick with is killing us. It makes stick-handling a mystery for kids. A hockey stick is not a baseball bat, it has totally different mechanics and technique, wake up people!

Its all with what your comfortable with. Its not like LH pitchers are throwing with the wrong hand. Its just what feels right.

Sorry, but I've gotta disagree on this one. Like the author of the article even suggested, people assume a hockey stick is governed by the same fundamentals as a baseball bat or golf club. They're making the game more difficult than it really is. They are likely using the bottom (right) hand as the dominant hand on stick-handling, which feels more "natural" but is completely wrong.

How are you going to disagree with what feels right to people. I Know plenty of right handed people who can stick handle just fine.If its wrong to shoot with your dominant hand on the bottom then I guess those guys in the NHL who do are doing it "completely wrong"

[srv2miker 0]

LH Dominant, shot right, golf right, bat right. Looks like I'm "normal" (except for the whole LH thing).

[ubitsa 0]

And I never understood the dominant hand on top for stickhandling anyway....most fancy stickhandling involves two hands...in which case I think the bottom hand has as much bearing on what happens to the puck as anything does...So it would seem more natural for the player to be doing that with his dominant hand.

[Jarick 5]

Wow, split right down the middle.

Right hand dominant, left handed in all sports, right handed in all musical instruments.

[big_bt 0]

im full LH

kicking, golf, hockey, soccer, baseball, basketball and etc.

[Spreedizzle 1]

Started playing hockey in the good ol' US of A.....thus my dominant hand is my bottom hand....that being my Right.

[cxo 0]

Right hand dominant, I'm a righty through and through.

[gxc999 7]

I maintain just because something feels more natural at first doesn't mean it's proper. Is a part of it personal preference? Yeah, it is. I'm RH/semi-ambidextrous.

My question is this, when you're eating a steak and cut it, are you holding the fork in the right or left hand? Fork= left hand and knife cuts via the right hand for me. Pardon the analogy but I find it's dead on (as the top hand is often the control hand with a stick). Maybe I can find a way to patent this idea...

[Ngo_35 1]

I thought fork and knife thing was a manners thing not comfort?

Now using chopsticks for example is pp. But most asians I see including my family all use their right hand. It just feels weird seeing people eat rice using their left hand. You bastards, I bet the rice doesn't taste as good as when you use your right hand.

The dominate hand theory for the top of the stick I'd say is dying nowadays. I'm sure you can develop your top hand to have enough strength with enough practice. IE You too can one day do a kovalev backhand.

[gagner89 0]

RH, RH on bottom.

It just doesn't "work" the other way!

[AWE46M3 0]

Interesting topic. When I played peewee many years ago I attempted to convert from RH to LH but was never all that comfortable with it so now I am RH again. I'm in the US and learned to play RH has I am RH by nature (golf, kick, pool, shoot, etc), but my first year peewee coach was from Canada and wanted me to learn to play LH to play off-wing on PP. I did this off and on for like a year and a half and to this day, I can stick handle just as well, LH or RH, and pass but shooting is another story.

[Dat 0]

The dominate hand theory for the top of the stick I'd say is dying nowadays. I'm sure you can develop your top hand to have enough strength with enough practice. IE You too can one day do a kovalev backhand.

This is what I believe as well. I think it's much better to have 2 hands that are about the same level in dexterity and coordination than to favor a dominant hand. I'm naturally a righty, but with my left I learned to mouse and write (albeit it looks like an 10 year old's handwriting). I also do ambidexterous activities like rock climbing and juggling to work both sides. I shoot right, but I focus on my non-dominant left hand for blade control.

[dangle 0]

I experimented with this when I first started playing hockey. Some background info... I'm right handed, I throw right, swing a bat right handed,etc. Initially, I thought i was left handed. I would go down to my basement and shoot, puckhandle, etc.

Well a friend of mine left a right handed stick at my house. For giggles, I picked it up. Within 5 minutes I was shooting just as good as I was shooting left handed. I began to wonder what hand I was. My puckhandling skills weren't as good righty as they were lefty.

To this day I can shoot right handed pretty darn good. But I've always felt a little more comfortable left handed with a hockey stick. If I practiced more right handed i think i could've been right handed easily. I probably still could. Its more natural for me to be lefty, so thats what I do!

[nummer55 10]

Don't know whether it adds something to this discussion, but when I was really young I played field hockey. In field hockey (shorter stick, but also handling / shooting) there are only RH sticks - so everybody plays right handed. Just the way you learn it, whether you're left or right handed.

[Dangles919 0]

i do everything left handed but write right handed and kick a soccer ball with my right foot.. don't ask me how that happened

[gxc999 7]

I honestly tried to pick up a righty stick once, I almost fell over. I was totally lost, my whole body felt upside down. Funnily enough, my left lower body is stronger but the right is more coordinated, but my right arm is a little stronger than left. I dono, I just think there's a reason for the dominant hand on the top helping stickhandling and passing.

I understand a part of it's obviously preference. I'm really enjoying being lefty now since all it seems 2/3rds of American players are now shooting right, I get better deals on sticks, muhahaha!

[chippa13 1844]

This topic has been covered about once a year on this board. Which hand you have at the top of your stick usually has to do with how old you were when you first started playing with a hockey stick. The younger you were, the more likely your dominant hand will be at the top of the stick.

[Penguinsfanatic 0]

I'm a righty in everything but hockey.

[Aussie Joe 0]

This topic has been covered about once a year on this board. Which hand you have at the top of your stick usually has to do with how old you were when you first started playing with a hockey stick. The younger you were, the more likely your dominant hand will be at the top of the stick.

Correct Chip and whats more annoying is the amount of people "preaching" the correct way to do things. One thing is for sure in hockey, its not the way you hold the stick but what you do with the puck that makes the difference.

My sister (the doctor in Psychology) was once telling me that historically there was a point roughly 150-200 yrs ago where leftys an rightys held relatively equal numbers in society. But certain genetic and cultural changes effected that balance and now we see the mass influx of right handed preferences for most fine motor control tasks.

[ultraman7k 0]

hockey lefty, everything else righty.

[lotus 2]

Righty in everything, lefty in hockey. Wonder if I could switch hit baseball? Never really tried...

[LkptTiger 1]

RH with most everything (including hockey), switch-hitter.