Some of you guys really have to stop talking about manual labor. It's obvious you have never done any, and it's embarrassing to read your posts. I've done various forms of it, starting with summers as a 13 year old in my uncle's concrete biz. I have poured concrete, wheeled it, loaded bricks, fought a forest fire, built houses, bailed hay (just one day), and presently work at a sawmill. Never mind the fact that I am not very strong, and that I have had back problems for much of my life, until I dicovered olympic lifting and crossfit, but also - I have worked with hundreds of these 'blue-collar heroes' you guys are on about in this thread. They smoke, have bellies, and about 1 out of ten of them are strong enough to remark about. That 10% probably just has good genetics, but also, usually, in fact, possibly always but i don't wanna be 100% because my memory is going back over a lot of years here, but NEARLY always that 1/10 blue collar, Paul Bunyan, tears in me- eyes, O! Canada, plaid-wearin' motherucker - ALSO WORKS OUT.
Now, I have made my best effort to debunk the first course of mindless insanity in this thread.
#2
Having big muscles makes you pretty much a shoe in for a huge slap shot.
No.
Technique, and general height/length means more. Same rule in a golf swing. Speed is easier to generate if your stick blade/club head has a longer track on which to accumalate speed. Explosive power will help you generate it over a shorter track, and that does involve muscles, but not Paul Bunyan muscles. Explosive power is more about speed. Think sprinters coming out of the block. (Funny link - back in the 70's the USSR had their oly lifters come out of the blocks - turned out they were faster for the first 10 meters than their track counterparts!!! Guess who started using oly lifting in their training???) The power generated in a hockey slapper, or a golf swing is more about technique, and actually flexibilty (which allows you to have a longer track) than it is about bulk muscle. If the puck was heavier, than there would be a larger element of resistance at impact, THEN strength would play a much bigger role, as you have to maintain your forward force THROUGH impact. This is why a heavyweight hits harder than a middleweight in boxing. He has more 'weight behind his punch'. The middleweight throws faster, which would send a light object further, but can't go through a man's head the same.
Like I said about Russian/world sprinting - these guys that run the big leagues have teams of serious professionals studying this stuff. There is big money involved, and loads of passion -AND it's their 9-5 job! Do you honestly think none of the thousands of coaches and trainers in the last 50 years of sport, NOT JUST NHL, but ALL sport, haven't considered getting their guys to 'load concrete', 'bail hay, or 'chew more tabaccy'?? Do you honestly think that the most cut throat, competitive guys, who are looking for actual MILLIONS of dollars in their next contract wouldn't be willing to do it in the summers??
Stop the bloody madness, boys.
most amusing. Yes, the Slapshot. Reputed to have actually been invented by a black player in the 1880's called Eddie Martianni who played for the Halifax Eurekas'; or as modern legend has it, Bernie Boom Boom Geoffrion of Montreal. In the 50's, Andy Bathgate, then with the Rangers, introduced the curved blade, breaking his sticks deliberately, picked up either by chance or copied by Makita & then Hull. 
