In hockey, as, indeed, in any other field of activity, there are stories and legends that are passed from mouth to mouth. At the same time, here the truth often coexists with fiction, with details that acquire more and more new shades over time.
Firsovsky throw
One of the most discussed and, one might say, “tasty” topics in the fan community are memories of those hockey players of the past who had a “killer” throw. The so-called "Firssian throw" or "Bobby Hull snap" is always mentioned. There are "living witnesses" different kind"eyewitnesses" who "with their own" eyes saw how the same Firsov with his click immediately broke through the net of the goal, the side of the Sports Palace and hit a fan who landed in the hospital. Then, allegedly, the hockey player had problems and the coaches asked Anatoly to moderate the power of his throw.
But back in the 90s of the last century, Anatoly Vasilyevich, in a conversation with the author of these lines, revealed the "secret" of some stories.
- Never, of course, I did not break through the side of the Sports Palace. Just a long-term goalkeeper of the Czechoslovak national team, Vladimir Dzurilla, once said that he beat off his whole body with his throw, and the defenders dodged and parted several times from the throws. And once, indeed, the goalkeeper, in my opinion, "Chemist", was hit in the forehead - then the masks were not the same as they are now. He lay on the ice for about seven minutes and the doctors conjured over him, but in the end nothing terrible happened. I think that since that time all sorts of myths have gone.
By the way, Firsov often used the power of his throw as a feint. He swung, what is called "from the ears", the defenders fell or parted, and he continued to move forward.
Attacking the USSR national team. Right: Anatoly Firsov (No. 11) (Photo: Viktor Budan / TASS)
Bobby Hull snap
And the legends about the throwing power of the legendary Canadian striker of the 60s and 70s, Bobby Hull, were spread not only by ordinary fans, but also by the hockey players themselves, coaches, and specialists.
This is how one of the coaches who went to North America to see Team Canada before the 1974 Super Series spoke of Hull.
“He doesn’t have hands, he has levers!” Stroke!!! And what a throw!!! It looks like Firsovsky, but much stronger!
When the Soviet people saw Hull in action, they recognized that he was indeed an outstanding player, but we have at least no worse. And not alone. As for the “click”, the Canadian had it, of amazing strength. But he had nothing in common with Firsovsky.
- Tolya Firsov, of course, threw great, — said Honored Coach of the USSRBoris Kulagin. — But he had a big swing, and Hull seemed to “shoot”, almost without swinging, only slightly lifting the stick from the ice.
By the way, they say that Bobby Hull threw with brushes in the 60s of the last century at a speed of 169 km / h, and clicked at all - over 190 km / h. But now this result cannot be verified. Like the speed of the puck after Firsov's shot. They didn't do it then. It's a pity.
Pictured: Vladislav Tretyak, Gennady Tsygankov (center) and Bobby Hull (right) at the gate (Photo: Valery Zufarov and Igor Utkin/TASS)
Throw and click
So we come to the question that worries many hockey fans: what speed does the puck usually develop in hockey? And who is the owner of the record throw for the speed of the puck. And, of course, it is interesting to compare where they “click” more powerfully - overseas in the NHL or here in the KHL?
To begin with, we note that in hockey there are two main types of throws - hand and fly, that is, a click. The click is stronger. And not only because the hockey player makes the maximum swing, but also because the stick, hitting the ice in front of the puck, bends before touching the puck and it sounds like a shot, a kind of click. Therefore, the speed is measured precisely by clicking.
Our league beats overseas
In the NHL, puck speed has been measured since 1990. This is done at the All Star game. So here it is Al Aefreith from "Boston" at the corresponding competition then showed the result of 96 miles per hour (154.5 km / h). Three years later, he set a benchmark that another 16 years equaled - 105.2 miles per hour (169.3 km / h). Only in 2009 it was surpassed by the Slovak Zdeno Hara- 105.4 (169.6). In 2012, Hara raised the record to 107 miles per hour (172.2 km/h).
Zdeno Hara (Photo: Zuma/TASS)
However, by the standards of our KHL league, all these overseas records are “seeds” At the 2011 All-Star Game in St. Petersburg Denis Kulyash, which then represented the Omsk Avangard, “clicked” at a speed of 177.5 km / h. This result immediately hit the Guinness Book of Records.
But a year later, and beat this achievement Alexander Ryazantsev, playing at that moment for "Tractor". After his throw, the speed of the puck was fixed at around 183.7 km / h!
And although hockey experts still claim that many other hockey players had stronger clicks, officially the world achievement belongs to Alexander Ryazantsev. The record was recorded on January 21, 2012.
Few of the fans thought about the speed of the puck during the shot, who makes the most powerful and fastest shots? In the history of hockey, several people are known at once, who are considered champions in the speed of the puck.
In hockey, there are two main types of shots: swing and wrist shots. Flying shots (clicks) are considered stronger, the puck flies faster when clicked. This happens due to the maximum amplitude of the swing, as well as due to the fact that the stick bends during the impact and works like a sling. Puck speed in hockey - record and history in a few paragraphs below.
Puck speed - history
The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto has an attraction that allows anyone to try their hand at throwing. The average puck flight speed of the visitors of the Hall is 120 km/h, and they cannot catch up with such eminent record holders as Messier and Gretzky. But the most powerful throw belongs to another hockey player - the legendary Bobby Hull. The speed of the puck after its first shot was 193 km/h, after the hand shot - 169 km/h. Whether these figures are true or not, now you will not check. But they are considered official and Hull's shots have entered the history of the fastest shots in hockey.
In the NHL, the speed of the puck began to be measured since 1990, a little later this parameter was also recorded in the KHL. For a long time, Al Aefreith from Boston was considered the record holder. In 1990, he set a record of 154.5 km / h, three years later - 169.3 km / h. Only in 2009, the record was broken by the Slovak striker Zdeno Hara - the speed of the puck after his strikes is 169.6 km / h. Over time, this bar has risen to 172.2 km / h.
Hockey puck speed - KHL record
Russian hockey has its own champions - leaders in the strength and speed of the throw. In 2011, at the All-Star Game in St. Petersburg, Avangard Omsk player Denis Kulyash sent the puck into the opponent's goal at a speed of 177.5 km / h. The record was recorded and listed in the Guinness Book of Records. A year later, this record was broken by the player of the Chelyabinsk "Tractor" Alexander Ryazantsev. The speed of the puck after it was thrown was 183.7 km/h. The NHL record of 174.6 km / h somehow fades against this background. By the way, Alexander Ovechkin has the second place in the National League with 163.2 km/h. allow you to increase the speed and accuracy of throws. It is important to start working on this element again.
Formally, the world record belongs to Alexander Ryazantsev, but in Canada and the United States believe that the record holder is Bobby Hull with an indicator of 190.4 km / h. The best decision in this case - to agree with both statements - sport should unite, and not cause unnecessary controversy, and you and I should root for our favorite team and rejoice at new records.
The All-Star Game in its current format began in 1948. The birthplace of such show fights was North America, NHL. Since 1990, the game of the teams of the two conferences of the National Hockey League, "West" and "East", began to be diluted with various individual competitions. Including the strongest throw, the champion in which is determined by a special device. The first winner was the American defender from the Canadian club "Toronto Maple Leafs" Al Iefrati, who started the puck at a speed of 96 miles per hour (154.49 kilometers per hour).Three years later, Ayefrati set a record that lasted 17 years - 169.3 km / h. This result was improved only by the current sole leader - the captain of the Boston Bruins, defender Zdeno Hara, who won five contests in a row (2010-2014). The last achievement of the defender of the Slovakian national team with a height of 206 centimeters was a throw in the 2012 All-Star Game. Hara's result of 175.1 km/h was recognized by the NHL as a new world record.
The first "star weekend" of the Continental Hockey League was held in 2009 on Red Square in Moscow. And the league's debut contest of masters of the most powerful click took place next season in Minsk. It ended with the victory of the defender of Dynamo Moscow and the Czech national team Karel Rahunek, who threw the puck at a speed of 165.28 km/h. A year and a half later, Rachunek died in a plane crash along with other players from Yaroslavl Lokomotiv, who were flying to the game just in Minsk ...
High-speed "motorist"
For the last four seasons, two Russian defenders, Denis Kulyash and Alexander Ryazantsev, have been the KHL leaders in terms of throwing power. Formally, this correspondence rivalry is still a draw, since Kulyash won the ice competitions in 2011 and 2014, and Ryazantsev excelled in 2012 and 2013. But the record throw, which, despite protests from the NHL, is also considered a world achievement, belongs to the latter.It happened in the All-Star Game on January 21, 2012, when a player from Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg threw the puck at a speed of 183.67 km/h in an additional attempt. Alexander Ryazantsev, who by that time had already moved to Severstal Cherepovets, won the victory in the next season with a much lower result. The device recorded the speed of his puck at around 170.67 km / h. Throws by Denis Kulyash, who played, respectively, for Kazan's Ak Bars and Omsk's Avangard: 2011 - 177.58 km/h; 2014 - 162.2.
According to experts, the fact that defenders are the owners of the most powerful throws in the history of world hockey cannot be called an accident. Being usually behind the main attacking line and often, unlike the forwards, not receiving active physical resistance, Kulyash, Ryazantsev and others have the opportunity to calmly choose a position and aim. After that, they hit the puck as hard as possible, with a powerful swing, trying not to touch the ice.
However, historians and statisticians of North American hockey and the NHL argue that the strongest throw in the world many years ago was made by an attacker. We are talking about the legendary forward of the Chicago Black Hawks and the Canadian national team of the 1960s and 70s of the last century, Bobby Hull, who somehow sent the puck into the goal at a speed of 190.4 km / h. But since this did not happen in the All-Star Game, it is not a recorded record either. And Hull himself did not insist on another title either.
Moskvich Ryazantsev
Unlike the Canadian Bobby Hull, who played 1182 NHL games, Alexander Ryazantsev, who was born on March 15, 1980 in Moscow, did not spend a single minute in the strongest league in the world. Although he was once considered one of the most promising young defenders of Russian and world hockey, and in 1998 he was selected in the Colorado Avalanche draft. After that, trying to break into the main team of Colorado, he played for several seasons in North American teams of the minor leagues.Worthy of respect are such titles of the first "stick" of Ryazantsev's planet as the bronze medalist of the 2005 World Championship as part of the Russian national team, the winner of the 1999 World Youth Championship, the best defender and silver medalist of the same tournament in 2000, the winner of the European Champions Cup in 2006. Having started his playing career in 1996 at Spartak Moscow, Alexander later played in 13 more clubs, ten of which were Russian. His last team was Nizhnekamsk Neftekhimik.
Many hockey fans are very interested in the question: what speed does the puck usually develop in hockey? Who has the most powerful throw? And what, if we talk about the speed of the puck, is the record? Sovsport.ru tried to summarize everything that is known about this.
There are two main types of throws in hockey - a wrist throw and a swing, that is, a click. The click is stronger. And not only because the hockey player makes the maximum swing, but also because the stick, hitting the ice in front of the puck, bends before touching the puck and actually turns into a sling. Look at this photo of Sergei Fedorov - and you will understand what is meant:
Therefore, when people talk about the speed of the puck in hockey, they mean its speed after the click. So what kind of numbers are we talking about?
PUCK SPEED IN HOCKEY: A LITTLE HISTORY
The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto has an attraction. A fan stands on the net and tries to deflect the virtual shots of two of the most successful players in NHL history - Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier. Let's be honest, the fan has little chance - the "pucks" fly at a speed of 110-120 km/h. Something like this average speed pucks in hockey today.
However, neither Gretzky nor Messier, according to legend, had the most powerful throw in history. This glory belongs to another ice ace - Bobby Hull. They say that with his flick he sent the puck at a speed of 193 km / h, and with a wrist shot - at a speed of 169 km / h. “For five minutes my hand was paralyzed - Bobby Hull put his brand on it,” said one of his contemporaries, hockey players, who did not manage to dodge Bobby's click.
Whether these figures are true - you will not check. Firstly, now the clubs are not the same - they are easier. Secondly, not the same Bobby Hull. He recently turned 76.
FROM AEFREIT TO RYAZANTSEV
The NHL has been measuring puck speed since 1990 - Boston's Al Aefreith scored 96 miles per hour (154.5 km/h) in the corresponding "all-star" competition. Three years later, he set a benchmark, which was equal to another 16 years - 105.2 miles per hour (169.3 km / h). Only in 2009 he was surpassed by the Slovak Zdeno Hara - 105.4 (169.6). By the way, he is also from Boston.
Hare liked to break records - and did it a couple more times, reaching the figure of 107 miles per hour (172.2 km / h) in 2012.
But then it suddenly became clear that in the KHL there are also hockey players who can break through the wall with a throw. At the 2011 All-Star Game in St. Petersburg, Denis Kulyash from Omsk Avangard threw so that Khara bit his elbows with envy - at a speed of 177.5 km / h the puck sent by him flew straight into the Guinness Book of Records.
Another year passed - and this achievement was beaten by Alexander Ryazantsev, who was playing for Traktor at that moment. After his throw, the device recorded the speed of the puck 183.7 km / h.
Against this background, the result of Shea Weber from Nashville, shown at the last NHL All-Star Game, looks somehow weak - “only” 174.6 km / h (Alexander Ovechkin showed the second result - 163.2 km / h).
WHY WEAK KULASH?
But not everything is so simple. The fact is that in the NHL players shoot at goal from a distance of 30 feet - about 9.1 meters. In the KHL, during the record-breaking 2011-12 years, they shot from closer distances. And if you think a little, it is clear that the initial speed of the puck is always higher than its speed at any other moment. The farther away the point where the speed is measured, the lower the value will be.
In 2014, in Bratislava, where the All-Star Game was held, Denis Kulyash was very surprised by his victorious (again) result - only 162.2 km / h. But the fact is that the leaders of the KHL decided to move the puck from the gate at the same distance as in the NHL. And if the initial speed of the puck remained the same, then at the measurement point it fell much more strongly.
