Reversed Grip on a Draw
One night I happened to notice one of my centermen reversing his lower hand on his stick just before moving in to take a face-off. I’m sure you know what I mean… He switched his lower hand in the opposite direction, supposedly to gain more strength for pulling the puck rearward.
The good part of this was that my young guy was at least mindful of drawing the puck back amid his teammates. However, the bad part of this ploy actually reared its ugly head once the puck was dropped.
You see, for a lot of years now, most coaches have steered their face-off men away from this technique for a couple of very good reasons:
- Going in with that kind of a hand arrangement is a dead giveaway as to what a centerman plans to do;
- (as happened in the ensuing play) that sort of grip gives a player almost no chance in the battle for a loose puck.
Yes, the latter is exactly what happened… After an initial swipe at the puck, the biscuit remained between the two combatants until the rival centerman walked away with it.
So again, while a face-off man might be able to gain more strength from that grip, the negatives seemingly — at least to this old coach — far outweigh the positives.
