Ain't no way this video was done by someone with less than 2k subscribers. This was not only a great quality video, but it also was an in-depth analysis on a topic I've never really thought about before, no matter how many thousands of videos I've watched on this platform about hockey. Amazing, you won a sub

My dad always said "Goal scorers shoot left" when I was a kid. When I became an adult, I noticed some of the most prolific goal scorers were actually right handed and the best playmakers\stick handlers were mostly lefties. I finally looked up the top 10 goal scorers and had a lot of joy telling him that 6 of the 10 were righties. With a league average of 37% righties I think that is statistically significant that righties tend to be better scorers.

I never considered it was weird i shot right as a right handed person until I was older.

One thing to mention is that in America, kids are taught "right hand right shot", so I feel Right shooters are more common coming from the states, where as in Canada its the opposite

This is actually informative & excellent hockey content. Unlike 95% of these newer, completely lazy "hockey" channels that churn out completely uninspired daily videos using the most egregious clickbait titles. Because, well, they're lazy & uninspired. You've earned my loyalty & subscription. I hope other hockey channels start putting in a fraction of the work, research, and passion you did for this video. Thank you sir.

This video made me respect Nathan Mackinnon so much more. He’s a freak of nature.

Hardest wrist shot in the All-Star game, great idea! Hell yea let’s get the NHL onboard.

Your dominant foot plays a gigantic role in your ability to do everything on the ice for your puck handling and shot, left or right handed. It's important to train a dominant foot out of your skating.

excellent quality video. really hope this channel grows. awesome clip selection and explanations, excellent editing

Great vid! Myself being right-handed, I still shoot right. I feel that I "steer" with my weak hand on the top and use the force for shots on my lower hand. I also used to play goalie where I learned to shoot left but I also flipped the stick to shoot right backhands or simply stop the puck depending on which side it came. I have seen Curtis Joseph do the same quite often.

I've always noticed this because it seemed to me like all the best shooters were right handed shots. Ovechkin, Semin, Kovalchuk, Stamkos, Laine, Bedard, Weber, Jeff Carter (he had a crazy wrist shot in his prime). Of course there are still great left handed shots like Matthews, Tarasenko, Sakic, Gaborik etc but it seemed to me that right handed shots represented a disproportionate amount of the top goal scorers for a while.

9:32 - My wife grew up in Russia in the early 90s before she moved to Finland aged 8, she's left handed and at school she was still forced to write with her right hand so definitely possible that Ovi had the same treatment as a kid!

Very interesting. I'm right-handed, shoot right, and always wondered why I'm in the minority. It just feels natural to have my dominant hand, my power hand, lower on the stick. I compare it to driving a stick-shift, it'd just feel wrong to shift with my left hand and steer with my right. I also swing a baseball bat right handed, and I think the vast majority of mlb players swing right as well, so not sure why they'd be so different from hockey. I think the majority of golfers swing right as well. Btw, when I think of great shooters in NHL history, they're 99% right shots: Brett Hull, Bossy, Kurri, Lemieux, Ovechkin, Shanahan, Stamkos, etc. Only exceptions I can think of are Bobby Hull, and some new generation players like Matthews and Draisatl.

I honestly have no idea which hand is my dominant hand. I eat, use my phone, write, etc with my left but I throw, hit, and overall have more strength with my right hand

If your weak hand is at the top of the stick you can use your leg to help make a 1 handed shot. As you start to shoot, raise your knee up so that you can pull back with your left hand/top of the stick and lever the middle of the stick over your quadricep. Your stick/the shot basically becomes like a see-saw tipped on its side where your weak/top hand is on one side and the puck is on the other.

I was mind blown as a kid that i learned the different places teach the game different. Even in golf and baseball other countries put more emphasis on teaching methods of using your strong hand as the guide/control hand rather that the "power" hand. The ideology differences are truly fascinating. Using the stong hand on top increases release speed and stick handling, using the strong hand in yhe bottom increases powere and accuracy at the loss of touch

This was a well-researched and fairly thorough video, good job! My personal opinion is that the reason right-handed defensemen are more coveted is simple - they're less common. Because even stay-at-home defensemen, and 2-way defensemen who shoot right are in higher demand than their left-shooting counterparts. As for why left-shooters outnumber right-shooters, I think this is because, when you are first learning the game, the fine motor skills that you have in your dominant hand enable you to more easily and accurately control the puck while stick-handling (as the top hand is responsible for the finesse, while the bottom hand is responsible for the power). At a young age, you're going to get about equivalent power from both hands, but your dominant hand far out-paces your non-dominant hand in _control._ Furthermore, I think this is also a situation where we may be seeing a two-tiered survivorship bias situation. The first tier is that the players who take up the game with their dominant hand at the top of the stick are more likely to have *success* in the game, and will therefore increasingly out-compete the others as they age. The second tier is that for those players who use their dominant hand on the shaft of the stick, only the ones with the most extreme levels of talent and dedication will ever make it to the NHL - only the very best will overcome the odds. Applying this winnowing process to a population that is 90% right-handed, the proportion of left-shots who make the NHL will be larger (as they don't have as much to overcome to become NHL-quality players), while the group of right shots who do make it will be of higher quality overall, having been able to defy even steeper odds against them.

I think someone else mentioned about the geographical differences, but for me growing up in finland majority of the players were lefties as dominant hand on top = better stickhandles, but when i moved to the states at one point i was the only lefty on the team as they were taught ”strong hand on bottom for harder shot ” as kids

Great content, given that I live in Africa and can count the number of times I've ice skated on one hand; yet here I am watching all of your videos. The game is so fast my untrained eyes hardly see anything at all. The skill level of these players is mind-boggling. One minor thing: the discordant music sets my teeth on edge, and it's loud enough in the mix that I can't tune it out. That means I can't watch a full video in one go. Please consider dialing down the background music volume or switching to something less discordant and you'll have my sub. Keep on making videos! Many thanks, from a rugby-watching Saffa.

This is something that interested me, as my father was left-handed and shot right, while I am right-handed and shot left. He just always said you use whichever wat feels comfortable. After playing a lot of hockey, I switched from batting right to left in baseball. I have read the stat that the USA produces more right handed shots, while Canada and Europe produce more left-handed shooters. That might be interesting to explore. The best goal scored Ive ever seen was Brett Hull in his prime (with the Blues, most new fans havent seen just how good he was at that time) and he was a right shot but left-handed.

Ive never noticed the righty one handed puck protection thing but after seeing this video I just saw Joel Armia do it against the penguins with around 3 mins left in the first. If I hadn’t seen this video I would’ve never noticed that

Excellent video! I love a well done break down on the finer points of hockey with out all the new "techno-jargon", just good ole fashion analysis. Keep up the good work and with that, I'll hit subscribe.

Cannot understate how amazing of a video this is. I want to add a note about “backwards face-off” that you showed Bonino doing. As a right-hand shot if I need to win the face-off left I use that strategy probably 75% of those situations It’s really worked well for me because I can basically just punch out my right (dominant) hand like like a left-shot would, and I also get the benefit of having the curve to cup the puck more.

the dahlin to theodore cut was slick

Dude the intro to this made me realize it's not just me out there 😂 I can tell you which way everyone shoots too, thought about calling into the local sports radio and having them speedball player names at me lol. Weird thing I've always picked up on when I have buddies who can say which junior A team a guy played for, but can't tell you which way Steve Yzerman shot lol

"Rare to see a defenseman play on their offside" as you show Miro Heiskanen who does exactly that. Nice touch!

ive been spending months trying to find docu/commentary videos on hockey. i’m so glad the algorithm brought me to this page. can’t wait to see this channel grow!

This was fascinating ! Loved what you did there with the two Alexanders, very nice move.

This dude is starting to cover stuff I’ve always wondered about, but didn’t know how to approach. Good stuff 👍🏻 I agree about the right-handed d-man, it seems more lefties are Defensive D or just guys with big clappers. With exceptions of course

This is an amazing analysis! ❤ Never considered it, but always wondered. Need more of these!

Ehlers has switched hands a few times mid play in an NHL game, it’s very subtle but it comes naturally to him. Watched him play here in Halifax a lot and apparently he practiced stick handling both left and right handed.

Dang dude. I watched like two of your vids and turned on alerts and got excited to binge watch them for the next few hrs. Only to find you dont have many! Please make more vids, this type of content is sorely needed

You make the most interesting hockey content on youtube. Respect.

Remember being told once you're supposed to get strength in your shot and stick handling from the hand at the top so that's where your dominant hand should be, but a lot of right handed shots feel they get more umf through the dominant hand pushing the stick from the shaft especially with slapshots and that's why so many right handed shots. It's why I shoot right, I feel like I get more strength in the shot that way but both hands are involved with stick handling so that isn't as good. When I tried goalie I had a glove on my left because of baseball

This is Masterclass…wow phenomenal video. I see you took the time and displayed a specifically chosen quality example for each and every little thing you spoke about. From the mighty ducks to Semin’s wrist shot. As a kid I always wondered why there was so few right handed sticks in stores compared to left finally figured it out that there were more left handed shooters. Thanks for this video clearly. Very very top quality.

I really appreciate the exhaustive research you did for this video. Nice job!!

this is a fantastically composed theory/analysis video. great work! topic suggestion: dominant skating habits based on which way the player holds the stick

I remember thinking something about the risto one looked odd too. great vid!!

This is a great video on a niche most might not think about. Fantastic work, best video (hockey or otherwise) I've seen in quite a while. I'm a righty but started playing lefty because I was told to "just grab a stick" having no clue the difference in the curve or being told which was right or left when I was really young. I learned years later in late middle school some of the benefits of my random choice and how to utilize it based on my dominant hand on top. Very cool breakdown and video editing work.

This is an amazing analysis! Never considered it, but always wondered. Need more of these!

I really enjoyed the video; thank you. I started playing hockey as a left-handed player, and at a young age, my dad bought me a right-handed stick. He thought I shot right, like he did. EVERYTHING you said about right-handedness being slightly better at shooting, quicker hands on left shooters was what I've always felt playing hockey. I always thought my shot on the left was weaker, but I had better stickhandling on the left. Anyway, I'm not crazy; thank you for confirming.

Great video. Best of luck on growing your channel. There is definitely a market for these types of videos, keep it up!

Interesting video. I’m glad at the end you did mention that the difference is subtle, because here’s the thing-repetition (i.e. practice!) matters way, way, way more than whether your dominant hand is on top or bottom. It will make the biggest difference when trying a new skill for the first time, but as you practice, over the years, the significance of where your dominant hand is disappears. I have a hard time believing, for example, that it really makes a difference whether or not NHL defensemen are poke checking with the same hand they write with. I’ve played a lot of hockey, baseball, and golf in my life (hockey the most, by far). I have found that many people make assumptions about which way you should swing a bat, a club, or a stick based on what your dominant hand is that, in my experience, just aren’t true. I have played with and against incredible athletes of all combinations (L or R hand dominant, shooting Lor R) to understand that in the long run it matters very, very little if at all. But so many people are surprised, for example, that I swing a bat left, being right hand dominant. I’m like “do you know how many MLB hitters are the same??”

This is a great video dude, super interesting. As a full right goalie, my teammates would always say it was harder to shoot on me in practice because blocker vs glove moment is flipped. I think Matthews ends up as a high level shooter because he’s so good and shooting high glove on a left catching goalie with his release. I think similar to baseball pitching, left shooters shoot better on a right catching glove and vice versa. The glove side is easier to score on (80/20) for a right shooter because it’s quicker. It doesn’t come across your body. Just my two cents!

Honestly I thought all lefty shooters were left handed. I didn’t even know you could put your dominant hand on top

Spectacular video! I think one of the best wrist shoots that comes to mind is Joe Sakic, a left handed shooter!

We need more hockey analytics like this. Top tier content, and I'm excited to see more from you!

as a lefty who shoots left this was so hard for me to wrap my head around (have barely played any hockey tho). Obviously I figured hockey players like to play with their dominate hand on the top of the stick I just never knew why. Maybe because I played lacrosse where most people have their dominate hand on the top end of the shaft, and it felt comfortable to just angle them down with a hockey stick

Brilliant video. Ive talked about this with friends for years. Kudos to you for putting the time and research into it to present this video. Very well done! The best Playmakers are lefties, the best Goal Scorers are righties, minus those few anomalies.

You’ve quickly became my favourite account on UKposts, through just these two videos. Would love to see more and support you if possible.

Another factor lowering the number of full right goalies (at least for the older generations of goalies) is/was that most start their junior hockey career with gear that the team has, which would almost certainly always be regular. That, alongside the enormous cost of goalie equipment and kids tending to grow quite fast, parents are usually more willing to buy used gear, and thus regular is usually what is available. For example, Boston Bruins legend Tuukka Rask is left-handed and was a right-side shooter, but their goalie gear was left, so that's the way he learned to play (Vasilevski could have something similiar).

Awesome video. The defensive advantage of your dominant hand being placed at the end of high end of the stick for right-handed players is so obvious, yet I'd never considered it.

Great video, and great channel in general! One thing you left out is how many youth players are right or left shots to begin with. The stats I found say stick sales are 60-40 in favour of left shots in Canada, and 60-40 in favor of right shots in the US (interesting fact right there). At least for now there are still more Canadian hockey players than US-born, so overall more youth hockey players shoot left. This makes some stats you mention like 77-25 top 3 picks look a little less dramatic, it's still obviously significant but not as much. On top of that, my personal experience playing youth hockey (in Canada) was that even more than 60% of players shot left (maybe 70-75%, but that's just based on vibes). An explanation for this follows the explanation people give for why there are more right shots from the US. Which is that right handed people tend to shoot left if they start playing hockey early, but they are more likely to shoot right if they have experience playing other sports first. So, those stick stats I mentioned include a lot of people who started playing shinny or road hockey as preteens or adults and most likely won't have time to develop the skating skills needed to get to the pros. But among players who start young, and therefore have a higher likelihood of getting to the pros, left handed shots might be very common, beyond what the stick sales stats suggest. Anyway, thanks for reading my novel haha, great content!

Excellent exploration! Got yourself another Sub. When I was a kid, I naturally picked up a stick and held it right. (I am right handed). But I didn't come from a 'hockey' family, or area, so it wasn't a gimmee that I'd have a new stick under the Xmas tree every year. So when we started playing at school (deep winter), I often didn't have my own stick, and would get what was "left" over; that was almost always a lefty. 'Everyone' seemed to shoot right back then; it was obviously very predominate. So, just wanting to play, I learned to play left, though my natural tendency was to play righty; by my early teens, I could play both. Fast-forward to 10 years later, after not playing for some time, I started getting back into it, with community centre floor hockey. When I picked up a stick as a 22 year old, LEFT was my natural feel, and I couldn't imagine shooting right. I've been a lefty ever since.

Phenomenal video, jeez Louise. When you brought up that Nylander clip and saying stick handling seems stiffer. I totally agree. Nylander is unique but one of the things that separates him from the pack is his puck control, especially in tight spaces. So I originally thought he has top tier hands, but after listening to you it’s more like his puck control is actually more connected to his skating ability. Thinking about it more he almost under handles the puck, and doesn’t really overload his system with a million puck dribbles

One of the most thought provoking videos I’ve seen. Curving the blade is a necessity for performance, but does pigeonhole you towards different strengths. On a related note, lacrosse is perhaps the one sport where having to switch hand orientation is so essential to being a legitimate player that non-dominant training starts almost at the very beginning. But I think you see a similar trade-off, as for a right handed person, shooting righty will feel more natural & control is easier to acquire but speed has to be trained, shooting lefty has a more natural power with the trade off of accuracy needing major work.

Hi, I just want to say that the level of research you did for this video is insane. As a fellow small-to-midsize youtuber, I can really appreciate how much effort you put into finding your footage and writing your script. Good work!

great video. really surprised to see the subscriber count that low considering the quality of the vid and time put into it

I did not expect this video to be as fascinating and in depth as it is when I clicked it. Bravo

This is top tier analysis and editing! Subbed and looking forward to your other videos!

Unreal research and info. I really enjoyed this. Keep up the good work!

Worth adding a comment from my time playing as a goalie catching with my left hand. My single best year statistically for saves was the year that my team used me and one other goalie swapped out periodically. We'd both suit up and get swapped usually at periods - it was a huge benefit in high-intensity games where we were facing a ton of shots on goal, but was also noticeable for another reason: He caught with his right hand. In retrospect, it was a lot like switching out relief pitchers as right-handed or left-handed specialists. If we noticed that the other team had particular shooting habits that favored one side or the other, we'd switch accordingly. IIRC, we had a combined 8 or 9 shutouts that year including against the team that would win the Peewee national championship. In general, I also shot left when playing out of the goal - despite being right-hand dominant. I never have had quite as much power as other players while shooting left, but had significantly better control over the puck, and have always had it explained to me that way: your dominant hand being low generally allows you to get better leverage and power, but having it high allows for significantly better fine motor control.

really well put togther video, great pacing, kept it all moving along nicely! I think it would be interesting to look across various populations where players don't tend to learn "dominant hand on top". Left-hand shot is more advantageous against a standard goalie just based on what the puck can 'see' and where the goalie's holes are. Left handed shot has an easier path to the low stick blocker side. Whereas RH players are straight at the glove side, and need to go cross-body to get to the higher scoring percentage hole. So in places with a predominanlt LH shooting player base, goalies will adjust to that with positioning by default that covers better for a leftie, and then making minor adjustments for RH - consider in an RH player base, the goalie will be making minor adjustments only very uncommonly match up against an LH player who has an even more exaggereated benefit because of the physical/geometry advantage of the LH puck path.

Etched in my Brain, Yvan Cournoyer, LH Shot, Screaming up the right side, the puck is right there, slightly out of position, top of the faceoff circle... Switches hands for a Slapshot: Il Lance et Compte!! man....That was over 50 yrs ago. Nice video, very well Done.

This shows my age, but when I was a teenager (back in the 1970s), I worked over the summer at a hockey school run by Ivan Cournoyer and Jacques Lemaire. After the kids were in bed, the staff would often have pickup games, and Cournoyer regularly joined us playing with the 'wrong hand'. But I never saw him do it in a game.

The amountof footage and research you had to put together for this video!!! Great details. Maybe the left hand shot players are able to fend off other players with their left hand is because most other players shoots left too.

This was a great watch! Great information and quality entertainment. Nice post!

Really awesome work! I have 0 doubt your channel will grow to a huge size if you keep up this quality because it is easily among the best content I’ve seen on UKposts. The clip editing and research/data are professional quality. Excited for future videos!

Amazing video!! I never comment on UKposts vids but this was top notch man, keep it up.

What a great video. Such a good video with lots and lots of effort and information. Subscribed

I noticed this when Kovalchuk and Overchkin were tearing up the goals. That most pure shooters shot right. So I had to check Pavel bure which was more of a speed/stick handling goal scorer. Bure is left. Happy someone made a video on this

My favorite player is Pat Laine, I’m very biased towards him, but the puck just zings off his stick different than most guys, shoots righty and has a deadly one timer. I’ve never really put together the thoughts, but you voiced exactly what I’ve begun to notice. Fantastic video

Excellent video, great editing and articulation. Also just saw you goalie vid abt white pads versus colorful. Really enjoyed that as well.

such a underatted account for real. Please keep making videos, they are amazing

So glad you made this video, I am naturally righty but can do things like backhands better lefty, there's so much correlation how your feet move in relation to your handedness and your dominant foot, i.e do you lead with your left or right foot. But I think about this a lot while watching hockey. Pasternak strikes me as a left handed righty, he looks and moves his feet more like a lefty.

I'm nowhere near the pros, but I started playing hockey with a righty stick, I figured since I was right handed that was the best option, until about 6 months later when I tried a lefty stick, I instantly felt more confident and my stick control improved since I was more confident in making movements with my right hand, personally didn't feel much of a difference in shot power or ability but I was so bad at the time I probably had the technique all wrong. Great vid btw!

this video is so insanely good, really really good work man

This is the stuff I'm looking forward to learn the nuance of the game

This is extremely fascinating to me as I've played hockey my entire life, I'm 38 and I've never heard this, not even once. So it must be a Canadian thing to "teach" a player to play with their dominant hand on the top. Every person I know was just given a straight blade stick when they start, for the first year or two and whatever way they naturally grabbed the stick was the way that they chose to shoot. I'm right handed and shoot right side hockey, maybe because of how I swing a bat and a golf club. As a Goalie, I played pretty much my entire career I would say the dominant hand holding the stick really has nothing to do with it, at least not as an American. It is 100% what hand you learn to catch with and throw with AKA what hand you wear your glove in Tee Ball/Baseball. I have actually been watching a lot of videos and reading on this since I discovered this concept a few days ago and it appears that in Canada its about 70-30 left shot to right shot but in the US its about 50/50. I wonder if that is because in most cases hockey isn't introduced until older ages? Really no clue. One theory I read is that kids in Canada are given hockey sticks much earlier on average than other places in the world and its natural to grab the top of the stick with your dominant hand a very young age, before any other influences, and in the US its more common for a kid to grab a bat before a hockey stick and in baseball you almost always have your dominant hand on top. This is really fascinating stuff. My 6 year old son writes and eats left handed but plays all sports except for disc golf right handed. So his dominant hand (writing hand) is on the top of a hockey stick and bottom of the bat handle but he wasn't taught to do that it just happened.

this is incredibly thorough and quite enjoyable! cheers!

Back in the Hawks heyday, Seabrook’s shot was MONEY. Such a heavy shot, and when he had a clear look on the power play you knew it was going in. Conversely, in his later years, Keith had absolutely no shot. My dad and I would joke the goalie could have a cigarette before Keith’s shot reached him.

Very well done. I've been saying the same things to my buddies who are all right-handed righties and they always ask about stickhandling. I always tell them "You should've learned to be a lefty" 😁funny enough, we have had competitions where we switch hands and they always beat me, a right-handed lefty player when they go lefty and I go righty.

Glad I found your channel!

Jonas Hiller was a big inspiration for me growing up, especially once I found out he was right handed and caught right like I do. I feel like more goalies would catch right if the gear was more available.

Great video man Btw. I totally agree that it makes sense to have your dominant hand on top of the stick. I play baseball as well as hockey and it’d be interesting to see how they compare. I’m right handed and play hockey and bat lefty. While throwing a baseball righty.

Right shots being more elite shooter can likely be attributed to their dominant hand being the one that flexes the stick. They can really generate a lot of torque and whip it with the dominant side lower on the stick

i think that either daniel or henrik sedin writes with their left hand, but i'm not sure which one. as for andrei vasilevskiy, he said in an interview that he does everything left handed and would've caught with his right hand if given the opportunity, but when he was first starting to play goalie in russia, it was very difficult to find full right equipment and he adapted to the left catching equipment. tuukka rask is also another goaltender who writes with his left hand.

I’m left handed. I shoot left. Feels so natural to me, because I also play guitar right handed which is held the same way as holding a left handed stick. Also I skateboard and ride goofy where you’re facing the left, so literally everything thing in my life has pushed me towards left being the most natural and comfortable position when playing hockey. I’ve never really thought about the dominate hand being on top because I’m so used to having my non dominant right on the top that it doesn’t feel any different anymore.

A study was published on hockey shooting side and performance, titled: “Laterality differences in elite ice hockey: an investigation of shooting and catching orientations”. Results indicated right shot preferences were associated with scoring more goals, while left shot preferences were related to assisting more goals. Among goaltenders, right-catching preferences were associated with an increased save percentage compared with left-catching goaltenders.

Absolutely great video! Just discovered your channel, keep up the good videos and you should gain traction. Subbed!

U deserve so many subs

When I played hockey in my youth, as a skater I was right handed, with my right hand lower, but as a goalie, I was "shooting" left handed, with my left being my catcher and therefore being the lower hand.

0:50 Thank you very much. Now I’ll never be able to un-see that.

My dominant is left and I shoot righty and I’ve noticed my hands and shot are always the best parts of my game. I had thoughts like this but figured I was giving too much thought, but nice video to see a theory like this to put in a explanative way.

My 8yr old son is a rightie and shoots left. I tried to get him to shoot right because I assumed its the way a rightie is meant to shoot. The guy at the hockey store gave me a talking to and said my son was correct. Great video.

I never even thought of this, really awesome quality video.

Lord.. my head is spinning now. I can't even remember what way I shoot now. Thanks!

I'm going to pet this video everywhere and get your name out there!!! This video was amazing and all your videos are amazing. I hope you can grow this channel

I always thought that the best shooters seemed to be righties and the best playmakers seemed to be lefties, but I thought it was just a coincidence. Nice to see an explanation that makes sense and to know I wasn't dreaming.

extremely well put together video. awesome analysis. very in depth. i like this video