Removed My Chest Plate off my CA

Hi Todd,
Yes, my plan was to hopefully have ice with my C team first and see how it goes.
But unfortunately it appears my C team maybe no more.. there is such a demand.. over 30 teams in the league, that if you didnt sign up promptly the league dumped you.. even after 5 years in the league. so as of right now, our fate is unknown, the captain sent a letter to find out if there was room to add us back in. So, if that is the case, Sr A will be a trial by fire i guess.. LOL. but i am really not too concerned.
I played college back in the day.. with an old cooperall CA. it was one of the first for cooper as an all in one unit.
as apposed to a separate chest protector (like a baseball catcher wears) and separate SA95 arm pads.
And i survived.. LOL

Cheers
Jim

Originally Posted by toddler

I won't argue what you are feeling, but from a physics point of view, it's not possible for the guys with slower shots to have harder shots. Kinetic energy is equal to 1/2 mass * velocity squared.
Could it be that you are blocking the guys you think have "heavier" shots differently? Maybe because they get the wrist shot off so fast that you can't position yourself or move to absorb it like you can when the shooter winds up for a slap shot?

That's true if you're thinking the "heavy" shot is exactly the same as the "light" shot. However, I think it has more to do with the rotation of the puck and how it affects the impact of it on your chest. A quickly rotating puck hitting your chest will carry some of its momentum away from you, whereas the puck without any rotation will simply impact you entirely and you'll feel the shot more. The same can be said for pucks that are flippy: if you're getting hit by a puck that's flippy and it ends up barely hitting you or hitting you squarely on a block on the chest protector, you'll feel it much less than a puck that's traveling at the same velocity but hits its entire side, which will now be more likely to hit you near the ends of two blocks, which will carry some of its energy back into you more so than had it hit squarely on a block.

My thinking was that the puck probably is traveling slightly faster which would make it feel harder. The rotation arguement makes sense as well. Not being a physics professor my question is regardless of the speed of the puck, is it not possible to increase its momentum depending on the release?
For instance if when you slap the puck and your stick only contacts the puck briefly, compared to if you follow through dont you change the weight of the shot?

Nope, not at all. Momentum is, in physics, p = mv, so your momentum is simply the mass of the object multiplied by the velocity. As long as the pucks are the same size and they reach the same velocity, it'll have the same momentum. Rotation and angles (of the object) can certainly influence the "heaviness" or "lightness" of the puck's impact, which is my point.

Excellent points synesthete. If the puck hits you dead on and drops, that's probably going to hurt worse than if it glances off, and if it's tumbling and the area of contact is larger than an edge, that could also affect how much it hurts. So the "heaviest" shots will probably be the ones the are spinning flat and drop after they hit you. Might be a good idea to avoid blocking those with the flat sides of your mask!

I was watching this huge 6'6" guy practicing a few weeks ago during stick and puck. He was launching wrist shots at an empty net that were flying like frisbees. Would that much rotation cause them to glance off you laterally, or would they just hurt like ...

I would think the more rotation the less it would hurt. But I've also found that the guys like the ones you described, who are launching pucks that look like frisbees, may actually have less rotation than the guys who take full wrist shots. Think of it this way: most players in amateur leagues take long, slow wrist shots that use the entire blade and they often point the toe of the blade of the stick after shooting it. This puts a LOT of rotation on the puck. Now watch a guy who has a blistering shot. I've often found them to have very short, quick releases that usually come from the heel to the middle of the blade, using very little of the toe except for passing. This decreases the rotation, which would then put much more force into your pads as opposed to deflecting it away.

That's my theory, at least.