More Canadians Are Lefties

[jbg]

Eyeball this article. I always knew Canadians were lefties. Even with me as the resident left-wing Yank.

It’s Not Political, but More Canadians Are Lefties(link)

By JEFF Z. KLEIN

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — What is the difference between a Canadian and an American? The old question is coming up again here at the Olympics, with answers involving eagerness for war, ketchup, the pronunciation of toque or the ability to identify poutine and the Tragically Hip.

But none may be so simple as how one holds a hockey stick. According to sales figures from stick manufacturers, a majority of Canadian hockey players shoot left-handed, and a majority of American players shoot right-handed. No reason is known for this disparity, which cuts across all age groups and has persisted for decades.

Most Canadians, like most Americans, are naturally right-handed, so the discrepancy has nothing to do with national brain-wiring. And how you hold a pencil, say, has little or no bearing on how you hold a stick. A left-handed shooter puts his right hand on top; a right-hander puts the left hand there.

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Roughly 60 percent of the Easton hockey sticks sold in Canada are for left-handed shots, Mountain said. In the United States, he said, about 60 percent of sticks sold are for right-handed shots. Figures over the years from other manufacturers have put the ratio discrepancy between the two countries as high as 70 to 30.

The difference even trickles over into golf, where the swing is not unlike that of a slap shot. According to the Professional Golfers Association, 7 percent of Canadian golfers play left-handed, which is proportionally more than any other nationality. The reason is probably that Canadians pick up a hockey stick first and are therefore imprinted by the time they take up golf. Especially if they are from Quebec, where hockey players are even more left-handed than players in the rest of Canada.

Oddly, British Columbia — sometimes said to be the most American-like of the Canadian provinces — skews the other way. “The rest of the country goes 2 to 1 in favor of left sticks, but it’s reversed in B.C.,” said Marc Poirier, a customer service representative who handles Canadian orders for Warrior Sticks.

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A 2006 study found that 60 percent of all National Hockey League forwards were left-handed, as were 70 percent of all N.H.L. defensemen, but those statistics were not sorted by nationality.

Three players with Team U.S.A. said they had not noticed the discrepancy until it was brought to their attention Monday.

“I noticed a lot of righties when I was growing up, but now I see a lot of lefties,” said Ryan Suter, who plays for the Nashville Predators and shoots left-handed.

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“It’s probably a cultural quirk,” offered Brian Tran, a hockey-playing sales clerk at Cyclone Taylor Sports, a Vancouver hockey store. “Everybody’s doing it one way, so you follow along.”

[Oleg Bach]

Being left is fine providing you know ehat your right hand is doing.

[jbg]

ehat

Is that an internet-driven hat?

[Michael Hardner]

And a tinfoil hockey stick.

Klein and Reiff are to be commended, though. They developed the adjusted +/- that showed that the best hockey player in history was Wayne Gretzky. (I'm serious here, it's a fun piece of math.)

[Gabriel]

I'm right-handed but I shoot left with a hockey stick. I'm an example of this weird disconnect.