The Tucson Roadrunners were California-bound, and the load-out routine at TCC Arena was in full swing.
Equipment staff lined the Roadrunners’ sticks in numerical order, ready to be packed up for a recent road trip that loomed (and doomed, as Tucson went 0-3).
The first stick was taped and curved for a left-hander. Odd, considering just 10 percent of the general population are southpaws. So was the next one. And another one. Wait, another? Another?
Maybe 6 percent of professional golfers are left-handed. Roughly 8 percent of the NBA is left-handed.
In baseball, the number leaps to roughly 25 percent, as left-handed pitchers are a commonality.
But hockey? Hockey is left to the lefts.
An analysis by the Boston Globe last year revealed that the NHL is roughly 63 percent left-handed.
The Roadrunners are just below that figure, at 58 percent. Fourteen of the 25 players who made the road trip two weeks ago are left-handed.
How strange.
‘It sets you up for life’
The big question is why?
“It’s tough to put your finger on it within the hockey world,” Roadrunners defenseman Brendan Burlon said. “A lot of guys who play hockey left-handed will be right-handed in golf. I don’t know of parents who would push their kid to shoot one way or another; it’s just the way you grab the stick as a kid.
“But it sets you up for life if you’re going to end up a hockey player.”
He’s right: Eight of the last 10 NHL MVPs — Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane, Evgeni Malkin, Henrik Sedin, Joe Thornton and Martin St. Louis — pass and shoot left-handed. The two who don’t? Capitals star Alexander Ovechkin and Ducks forward Corey Perry.
Left-handers have an advantage when playing opposite a right-handed player, some believe. Those who are left-handed in youth hockey naturally success and the cream continues rising to the crop, almost like southpaw pitchers in baseball.
Mostly it’s just what feels comfortable and, as Tucson coach Mark Lamb says, “A kid will grab a stick and will go to his strong side.
There’s no sense in how it happens.”
“I know a few kids growing up who could play both, but I always started righty,” Tucson’s Christian Fischer said after scoring a pair of goals in a 5-4 overtime win over the Ontario Reign on Friday. “My dad was righty, my brother’s righty — I don’t know if that has anything to do with it, but they put a right-handed stick in my crib when I was a baby.”
Righties are rare
You want to have a laugh? Picture two dozen professional hockey players so befuddled that they resemble nothing more than your average crew down at the local rink.
“I’ll go in practice, and we’ll have a fun game where all the right-handers grab a left stick, and the lefties grab a right stick, and it’s like they’ve never played hockey before,” Lamb said. “You can’t even function. Our team would look like a beer-league team. Not even that good.”
You’d think that for a population of players that includes so many who play hockey left-handed but do everything else righty, there’d be some who were ambidextrous. There aren’t.
Burlon is one of the rare ones. He golfs right-handed and throws right-handed, but swings a baseball bat left-handed.
He’s grown into a fine puck-handler and shooter.
“It might look complicated, but for us it’s second nature,” he says. “Stick-handling is definitely an attribute if you can use it to your advantage. It definitely helps with your poise and patience.”
He might be on the short end of the stick, though.
Right-handed defensemen have become a hot commodity in the NHL, where their ability to scoop the puck from the boards has increased their value. Now most teams look for a balance between righties and lefties on the defensive side, and, Lamb says, “There’s just not a lot of them.”
“You might go through a cycle where you get a whole whack of them, but now, a right-handed defenseman is what everyone is looking for,” Lamb said.
“The best defensemen in NHL are righties – you’ve got (the Kings’ Drew) Doughty, you’ve got (the Canadiens’ Shea) Weber, you’ve got (the Capitals’) John Carlson. There’s a few of them, but everyone’s looking for them.”
If only Burlon could switch it up like he does in golf, he might get a couple more zeroes at the end his contract.
Then again…
“I play a different brand of golf, I’ll put it that way,” he says with a laugh. “It’s not very conventional. I’ll call it fun golf.”
