The snapshot is probably one of the most lethal shots in hockey, just because it’s so quick to get off and it’s really hard for goalies to pick up.
Hand Placement on Our Stick for a Snapshot
When we set up for a snapshot, we want to make sure that our hands are in a good position. Not too tight together, not too far apart. We want them to be about hip-width apart. So if your hand is on the end of your stick, you’re going to put your hands right beside your hips, nice and tight, and that’s about the area you want. You can slide it half a glove, or a full glove length down, that’s fine. Or you can use your forearm to hold your stick up in the air and the length of your forearm is roughly where you want your hands to be.
Keep Your Top (Control) Hand Up
So now that we have our hands set, and we know where our hands should be, we want to make sure that our top hand is up. It is very, very important on a snapshot. We want to make sure that the top hand is up, our shoulders are over our stick, and that stick is out a little bit. By pushing that top hand out, that’s going to give us more leverage on our shaft.
Stick Placement for a Snapshot
Another really, really key component to the snapshot is having the puck placed in the right spot beside our body. Ideally, what we want to do is create a shooting box. And that shooting box is going to be off of our foot. So if I’m a left-handed shot, I’m going to put my blade tight, tight, tight to my left foot. If I’m a right-handed shot, I’m going to put it tight, tight, tight to my right foot. Then I’m going to bring it out about a blade length, and up and down about a blade length.
It’s a little bit of a grey area, but that box is where we’re going to want to have the puck when we shoot the puck. So right beside our feet, and we want to bring it in nice and close. That’s going to keep my hand up and that’s going to allow me to push hard on my bottom hand and give me flex in my shaft in order to let that puck go.
Where Do We Shoot the Puck off our Blade?
Now that we have our puck placed where we want it, right beside our body, my top hand’s up, I’ve got leverage on my shaft, my shoulders are up, now I’m going to talk about where that puck should be on our blade.
You can snap a puck anywhere from your blade. Off your heel, off the middle, or from the toe. If you want to really load a puck and really snap a puck hard, we want to start the puck on the toe of our blade. So the puck’s going to begin on the toe, and it’s going to move to the middle and that’s where we’re going to snap.
When we have the puck on the toe of our blade, we’re not pulling the puck, we’re not toe dragging the puck, we’re just giving it a slight little tap to move it a little bit and then we’re going to snap. And one of the key things is making sure that we snap down on the ice and not necessarily worry about the puck. So when we pull the puck in, we’re gonna snap down on the ice, and that’s going to give us our snap sound and then our puck’s going to take off. And as we push down on the ice, our shaft is bending, so we’re getting that flex in our shaft and that’s going to give us a little bit more torque on that puck when that puck releases.
Make Sure to Snap Your Wrists
But one area that is often neglected in a snapshot is our wrist movement. When we take a snapshot, we want to make sure that we’re snapping our wrists. So a quick movement with our wrists, not rotating our wrists, not over-rotating our wrists, but just snapping our wrists. So when you do take that shot, and you tap it from your toe and you snap down you want to make sure that you’re snapping your wrists as you’re shooting the puck. Just by thinking about that motion, you’ll notice a tremendous amount of difference in that shot.
Using Your Legs to Generate Power on your Snapshot
With a snapshot, our power, once again, comes from our legs. It is very important to have a knee bend and make sure that we’re using the power in our legs. We still generate a little bit of power from our upper body by pushing on our shaft, but we want to make sure that our lower body is engaged. If I’m taking a snap shot off my “correct” foot, as a left-handed shot, I’m going to transfer my weight from my left foot to my right foot. As a right-handed shot, I’m going to transfer my weight from my right foot to my left foot. And that’s how I’m going to let that puck go.
Get Over Top of the Puck
On a snapshot especially, we want to make sure that we get over the top of the puck. By keeping that top hand up and out, that bottom hand on our shaft so we can push, we want to get out over the top of that puck when we push down and snap. A lot of young players end up getting under the puck because they’re trying to get it up, or they’re trying to get it to the top corner. They lean back on their snapshot and try to get under the puck. That’s going to take a lot of power off our shot.
Practice, Practice, Practice
The snapshot is a very technical shot and it takes a while to perfect that technique. The best way to perfect it is to practice it at home. When we’re practicing at home though, we don’t want those pucks way out far from us and try to snap and pull, pull and snap, pull and snap. We want to keep those pucks in nice and tight and really focus on that top hand being up, pushing on that bottom hand, and snapping hard down on that ice or on that pavement, or wherever you’re shooting your pucks from. So when you are practicing at home, make sure that your pucks aren’t too far away from your body. Keep your pucks close, pull one puck out, and keep that proper technique.
Keep Your Stick Shaft Out Front of Your Blade
The last key thing that you want to focus on is having your shaft out front of your blade. We don’t want our shaft behind our blade, we want our shaft out front of our blade. So our blade’s in our shooting box, our hands are set, our top hand’s up and out, and we want that shaft out in front. Now when we push we get our shoulders over, and we can really use the flex of our stick and bend that shaft with the shot. You’ll feel like there’s a big gap from the tap to the snap, and that gap will get tighter and tighter and tighter as you practice until eventually, you start executing good snapshots.
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