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The Hockey Stance:
Every hockey player knows and remembers the endless hours of practice their coach spent teaching them the correct "hockey stance" and can remember their coach explaining that it is essential for balance. But what exactly is the hockey stance and why is it any better than other stance? This is where physics can take the reigns and help explain why a correct hockey stance is so important.

The hockey stance is ultimately the best stance because it widens your base, reduces your center of gravity, and results in much better balance. As you can see in the photo to the side, the player who is in hockey stance has their feet spread shoulder width apart giving them a wide base and has their bent there knees lowering their center of gravity making it much harder to push them over. This stance helps you become significantly more prepared to deliver or receive a check which is essential for your safety and improvement as a player.

Alejandro L. Garica in an article he wrote called "Physics of balance and weight shift" helps explain that when your body's center of gravity is above the area formed by the support base the normal force can provide at torque which is necessary to remain at equilibrium, however, according to an online physics textbook published by Open Oregon when that center of mass passes outside of the support base the you loose the torque provided by the normal force and thus tip over due to the torque caused by gravity. This is called the tipping point and can be seen in the picture below. However you can make it much harder to reach your tipping point by simply bending your knees which lowers your center of gravity. This is why its much harder to push someone over then they are standing straight up compared to when they have there knees bent and are in a wide stance.

The game of hockey wouldn't be the same without checking.This nail biting
and bone crushing component of hockey has helped spring hockey into
becoming one of the most played and fastest growing sports in all of North
America. Checking has become a key component of hockey and
understanding the physics behind it can give you a huge advantage over
your opponents as well as help you avoid injuries while playing. In this section
we will talk about two of the primary things physics can tell us about
checking; firstly we will look at balance and how a good hockey stance
will help you give and receive hits, then we will talk about collisions and
about the critical role that size and weight plays in checking.

Collisions:
Although the hockey stance is crucial for checking and for balance there are many other
factors that that play critical roles in checking. One of the most obvious and most
important to take into account is player size. I think we've all experienced being
destroyed by a bigger player regardless of how good of a hockey stance we've had and this
can best be described by something called momentum. According to Professor Newman a
widely appraised and sought after physics professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
momentum is an vector which is proportional to the product of an objects mass and velocity.
Using this, and the law of Conservation Of Momentum, which states that within a closed
system momentum cannot be create or destroyed, we can determine that that the player with
the larger mass will have an advantage over the smaller player as he isn't affected as much
from the collusion due to his larger mass. This gives the larger player a great advantage which can be seen in the example below. Although it seems that size ultimately trumps in collisions smaller players also have a slight advantage of their own because their center of mass is lower. So no matter what size you are you can use your knowledge of physics to your advantage to give you the upper hand against your opponents.