Hello everybody and welcome back to the second instalment of my Crucible Blog Posts. If you don’t know what these blog posts are about, go read my first Crucible Blog Post.

This time around my blog post is based off the prompt:

Read “How to Spot a Witch”. Write a paper or create something similar to this essay on how to spot a _________.

So I will now explain to you all how to spot a bender and how to avoid being one yourself.

Sock Tape

In hockey most players where what is called sock tape. It is a form of a clear tape that goes on your socks to keep them in one place. However even with a concept this simple, many people still do it wrong. There are certain cases where using coloured sock tape of even stick tape is acceptable but if it doesn’t match your sock colour, and isn’t for a special occasion it just looks completely wrong. Another important tip with sock tape is that:

Sock Tape is For Your Socks Not Your Ankles!

Stick Tape

With stick tape, there are four acceptable options. The two classics that start from the heel and go off the toe or just about to the toe. These two options in general just make the most sense, because you are protecting the entire blade of the stick. Although I do believe going off the toe is the way to go becuase when shooting the puck travels along the same surface the whole time rather than going tape to blade. Generally people just don’t do the toe because the don’t know how to.

The other two options are much more modern and in my opinion just don’t work quite as well. One option is basically just the classic going off the toe but the tape starts halfway down the blade. I’m not entirely sure why people do this but it’s popular enough that it’s acceptable. The other option is only acceptable if your Russian. You start the tape about toe thirds down the blade and only do two or three wraps around and that’s it. In the slide show above there was a photo of a tape job like it, but the player was not Russian and he started the tape to early on the blade.

So if you don’t want to be a bender I’d just stick with the classic off the toe.

Stick

There’s really not a whole lot to say about what stick to use. For the most part just use a stick that you are comfortable using and that you can flex with relative ease. However if your stick is way too long you may receive a few chirps. The one thing to avoid when buying a stick, is make sure the stick was made in this century, preferably this decade. If you show up to the rink expecting to use a wooden stick, theres something wrong. There are plenty of decently cheap composite hockey sticks that do the job well and look just fine. Leave the wooden sticks for the road.

Ankles

Now this is the biggest tell of a bender. The namesake of bender comes from his or her bendy ankles. If you find your ankles are bending when you are trying to skate. Don’t worry about playing hockey yet. Go back to the public skates and grab one of those push stands and try and balance your weight on the bottom of the blades instead of your ankles. Then you can come back and play hockey. If you really try to play hockey when your ankles are still bending you will end up hurting yourself physically and most likely mentally from all the chirps you will receive.

Now that you know how to spot a bender and more importantly how no to be one. Go out to the rink and have some fun with your newly secured ankles.