Help switching from righty to lefty? - Due to injury :(

[SCATMAN 33]

Hi all, 

Long story short, I've had a wrist injury thats been getting worse with time and I'm at a point now where I have trouble holding onto a hockey stick with my top hand :( The injury is to the nerve cluster at the base of my wrist that more or less controls movement and grip strength of the hand. Surgery isn't really an option for me and I've been working with a physio on it for about a year and have only had minor improvements.  

My right hand is my dominant hand however I've been playing with a right handed stick all my life, with my left hand up top (I've been playing hockey 15-20 years). I've been thinking I might try to make a switch and get my right hand on top of the stick instead of my left with the hope this will keep my playing hockey for longer down the line. 

Has anyone had any success changing hands or can share tips on how to help make it easier to keep a grip on a stick?

Thanks in advance. 

[psulion22 402]

I'd argue that having the dominant, non-injured hand on the bottom would be better for control.

I play goalie too, and playing with a normal lefty stick is more difficult because you can't get great grip on the bottom of the stick, so you lack control and strength.  Switching to a glove that closed easier greatly improved my stickhandling.  I don't think it's a coincidence that I can now squeeze the stick tight.

[chippa13 1844]

There have been studies done on where one places their dominant hand on a hockey stick. The prevailing wisdom is that the younger one starts using a hockey stick, the more likely that they are going to have their dominant hand at the top of the stick.

[psulion22 402]

12 minutes ago, chippa13 said:

There have been studies done on where one places their dominant hand on a hockey stick. The prevailing wisdom is that the younger one starts using a hockey stick, the more likely that they are going to have their dominant hand at the top of the stick.

This would make sense as to why there are so many more lefties (especially on defense) in the NHL.

The prevailing wisdom is also that the placement of the dominant hand determines which skill set a player would be better at.  If the dominant hand is on top, the player will have better puck skills and puck control since the top hand controls stickhandling.  But one with a dominant bottom hand will have stronger, more accurate shots and passes because the bottom hand creates leverage and is used to aim and control release and receipt of the puck. 

[chk hrd 164]

Good luck changing hands, I don't know if I could ever do it because it's so ingrained into me. When my son was playing travel hockey his coach used to make them switch sticks for warm up sometimes. It was fun to watch because these high level players could barely do anything, even their skating was affected. I only know a few people who could play both ways. It may take a lot of time to get proficient.

IMHO it's not where the dominant hand goes as much as what feels right to the player. One of my son's coaches (ex NHL player) would take the kids just learning and put their stick on the floor and tell the to run over and pick them up. The way the naturally grabbed it without thinking was usually what felt normal. We also used to recommend the kids use sticks with completely straight blades to help figure out what they liked best. 

[puckpilot 312]

IMHO, it'd be a long process, that you'd have to really commit to in order to make it work. You're going to have to overwrite a lot of your instincts. It's not just your hand movements that will be affected. Your skating will be too.

I'm a lefty, right hand dominant, and I goof around with right handed stick on a semi-regular basis while doing drills. I still find it a challenge to switch gears to even stickhandle poorly.

But I feel for you. A few years back, I ran into some wrist issues with my top hand, Carpal tunnel. Wrist was weak for almost 6 months. So, I played with the idea of switching if things got really bad, but fortunately, I discovered some simple wrist exercises and wrist stretches that fixed things, that and a tweak in how I grip the stick with my top hand. Hope things work out for you.

 

[jmiro 55]

I am a lefty....  i was away for three weeks stuck in a hotel.  I bought a righty and had a stick handling ball.  No where near as good as i am with the left.  Ill play pick up once in a while or stick time with a righty.  Honestly two times i scored righty with a righty.  Dude on the bench handed me a righty in an iron man picked up a rebound with a wrister.  This weekend found my self in a weird spot in slot flipped my hands on lefty stick handled shot and scored.  Takes a while. And practice.

[chippa13 1844]

1 hour ago, chk hrd said:

Good luck changing hands, I don't know if I could ever do it because it's so ingrained into me. When my son was playing travel hockey his coach used to make them switch sticks for warm up sometimes. It was fun to watch because these high level players could barely do anything, even their skating was affected. I only know a few people who could play both ways. It may take a lot of time to get proficient.

IMHO it's not where the dominant hand goes as much as what feels right to the player. One of my son's coaches (ex NHL player) would take the kids just learning and put their stick on the floor and tell the to run over and pick them up. The way the naturally grabbed it without thinking was usually what felt normal. We also used to recommend the kids use sticks with completely straight blades to help figure out what they liked best. 

That is correct. And the younger the player the more likely the dominant hand will hold the top of the stick because that is what generally will feel most natural as the younger the skater is the more likely they will hold the stick with one hand.

[Vet88 674]

You have to learn to stick handle, shoot and pass all over again and many aspects of your skating style have to adapt. At least the brain knows what to do this time and adjustments to your skating are quick. It's all down to how much time and effort you want to put into it. I always get players to swap sticks at some stage during the practice for a few drills, over the years a lot of them are now comfortablish with the opposite hands.

[Davideo 99]

Video of the Montreal Canadiens playing with different handed sticks:

 

[SCATMAN 33]

Thanks dudes. Yeah it's a crumby situation to even consider!

To date I've had some success by changing the way I do my butt end tape job to something thicker and easier to grip. Also I'm going to try using lighter and shorter sticks before trying to swap hands. Still not ruling it out though.

[SCATMAN 33]

9 hours ago, Davideo said:

Video of the Montreal Canadiens playing with different handed sticks:

Looked like a drop in game! Crazy haha

[psulion22 402]

1 hour ago, SCATMAN said:

Thanks dudes. Yeah it's a crumby situation to even consider!

To date I've had some success by changing the way I do my butt end tape job to something thicker and easier to grip. Also I'm going to try using lighter and shorter sticks before trying to swap hands. Still not ruling it out though.

Have you tried one of those weird looking Oggie Ergo grips that looked almost like a hammer handle?  That may work really well because they're designed to change the angle of your hand on the stick and create more leverage.  They don't seem to be made anymore, but maybe you can find one on eBay or kijiji.

Or even one of these?

https://www.icewarehouse.com/Better_Butt_End_Hockey_Shaft_Stick_End_Plugs_Sr__Jr/descpage-BBEP.html

[Fletch 219]

What about switching to goaltender?  Just a thought...

[SCATMAN 33]

I haven't brought myself to buy a lefty yet but I've flipped the stick to the other hand a few times.. Geeze its hard! it definitely throws all your mechanics out too. I'm still not sure if I want to swap hands and I think it would really be hard, but not impossible.

I feel like if I keep using a larger/thicker knob so its easier to grip and just go for the lightest stick I can find that I might be ok for a while. I guess for me it would also be important to have a light blade or a more top heavy stick so that I don't have a lot of swing weight to control. That and trying to go one hand on the stick less (hard when playing defense)

[Santos L Halper 90]

On 4/16/2018 at 6:20 AM, SCATMAN said:

[snip]

I feel like if I keep using a larger/thicker knob so its easier to grip and just go for the lightest stick I can find that I might be ok for a while. I guess for me it would also be important to have a light blade or a more top heavy stick so that I don't have a lot of swing weight to control. That and trying to go one hand on the stick less (hard when playing defense)

Just catching up to this thread...

As I read through all of the posts, I kept saying to myself "change the grip size/shape, first....change the grip size/shape, first".  Glad to see you're monkeying around with that.  A suggestion - if the weight gets too much with tape, you can get sandable/shapable foam blocks from Amazon (search for "craft foam blocks") and shave/sand them until you have a size/shape that works, then use some double sided tape to secure them to your stick while you tape over them.  My mom (a medical technologist) has extreme nerve damage in her hand and was unable to work several machines in the lab (including the focusing rings on the microscopes) until they jury-rigged up some 'grip expanders' and it's worked wonders for her.  

Personally speaking, I've done the 'hand switching' thing in golf (from righty to lefty - I've always played hockey left handed) due to a shoulder injury, and it was absolutely a struggle.  Yeah, I definitely had the "THIS FEELS WRONG!!!" factor, but what was surprisingly difficult to master was the change in which eye I was using most to execute and maintain my swing-path and ball striking.  I'm right-eye dominant...but when I switched hands my left eye all of the sudden took on way more of the responsibility for tracking the ball as I swung.  It took months of pounding balls at the driving range before my brain registered that the 'picture' it saw when I swung the club was "correct".  

Oh,  And I still suck at golf....

[SCATMAN 33]

Hey all, I wanted to give you all an update on things. 

I kept looking for ways to tape the stick for better grip in my hand and I ended up finding Marc Savards youtube page where he details dozens of ways the pros do their tape jobs. I saw the Kucherov style butt end and remembered seeing another video on it where Kucherov talked about why he liked it (he liked the feeling in his hand and felt it let his small hands grip the stick better) so I thought I'd give it a try with a minor tweak. 

Project 91 YouTube Channel (Marc Savard)

Nikita Kucherov Stick Taping Ritual

The difference for me being that I dont think my hand is that small so instead of starting with 8 wraps I started with 10 wraps, then progressively worked the "steps" down to 8, then 6, 4, 2, then 1 to finish off. Adding some grip tape as well.

I've put this TJ on a few sticks and the feeling in my hand is really nice - different - but nice. I was previously using a standard knob/twirled tape/grip tape combo. Similar to the McDavid style seen here but with 15 wraps in the butt end, 2 laps of the twisted up tape/rope, and add grip tape. 

Still early days however so far so good with the Kucherov! I'll report back in a few weeks to let folk know if things are still working.