Abstract
This research explored whether an advantage exists in playing an ice hockey defenseman on his or her “off” hand. The study included a cross-sectional experiment with 10 hockey defensemen who were males aged 14–16 years. Success rates for several defenseman tasks were analyzed to determine if there was a significant difference in performance when the defensemen played on the off hand side rather than the traditional “on” hand, dominant side. The tasks involved were blue line puck containment, defenseman-to-defenseman (D-to-D) passes, one-timer shots in the offensive zone, and breakouts on the strong and weak sides of the ice in the defensive zone. A chi-square analysis was used to look for a significant relationship between the testing variables and success rates. Overall, no significant difference was found between playing off hand and play ing on hand in the defensive zone. However, in the offensive zone, success rates were higher for off-hand play than for on-hand play, in terms of puck containment (72% success for off-hand play) as well as D-D passes and one-timer shots (90% success for off-hand play). A significant difference was found between off-hand one-timer shots (p = .000) and puck containment (p = .001). The main conclusion drawn from this study is that there are advantages to playing defensemen on the off hand.