Slapshot

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Slapshot" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A slapshot (also spelled as slap shot) is a powerful shot in ice hockey. Its advantage is as a high-speed shot that can be taken from a long distance; the disadvantage is the long time to set it up as well as its low accuracy.

It has four stages which are executed in one fluid motion to launch the puck toward the net:

1. The player winds up his hockey stick to shoulder height or higher.
2. The player violently "slaps" the ice slightly behind the puck and uses his weight to bend the stick, storing energy in it like a spring. This bending of the stick gives the slapshot its speed. Just like a bow and arrow, the stick's tendency to return to being straight is transferred to the puck, giving it much more speed than just hitting it alone could.
3. When the face of the stick blade strikes the puck, the player rolls his wrists and shifts his weight so that the energy stored in the stick is released through the puck.
4. Finally, the player follows through, ending up with the stick pointed towards the desired target.

The slapshot is a hard and fast shot, and difficult to make accurate. It also takes longer to execute; a player usually cannot take a slapshot while under any significant pressure from an opposing player because the opponent could easily interfere during the windup. Offensive players, when wary of a defence player intervening, may elect to take a shot that is speedier to set up, such as a wrist shot. The slapshot is most commonly used by a defenceman at the point, especially during a power play, although a forward will sometimes find an opportunity to use it. Slapshots are iconic to hockey's image due to their capability to score as a surprise turning point, the loose equivalent of a home run in baseball or a Hail Mary in American football.^[1]