Question

The hardest shot competition during the NHL All-Star Weekend has been won by a defenseman in 18 of the last 20 competitions. The hardest recorded shots have been by Zdeno Chara (6 feet 9 inches tall) and Shea Weber (6 feet 4 inches). If you competed against these two in a hardest shot competition, what advantages would these players have over you (other than being an elite athlete) and why would that matter?

Answer 1

When shot is applied by stick, what the player does?

The stick is held in hand and the hand is taken backwards to fix a position. Then the stick with hand is turned around shoulder joint !

The tangential force is applied on the ball at the end of shot.

What happens exactly here?

The total length of arm and stick is the moment arm (r)

The tangential force applied is (F)

The moment of the force or Torque is applied on the ball given by

The magnitude of vector product is

Hence torque = r.F. sin 90⁰ =r.F.1=r.F

Assume that all athletes can apply same force F so amount of torque depends upon moment arm r only.

The person with greater height (from ground to shoulder in this case) will have larger value of 'r' hence greater torque is applied on the ball.

Greater torque gives greater angular momentum to ball producing harder hit!

So if all persons have same applied force on the ball, the person with greater height gets advantage ! Eventhough there is same set of skill!