The pass arrives a little behind you. You catch it, pull it toward your skates and try to move it into a shooting position. Your top hand runs into your body. By the time you have made room, the defender has closed the lane.
In the shop, the stick reached exactly where somebody said it should.
A stick can pass the chin-height check and still feel awkward when the puck gets close. It can also sit below that mark and leave a player perfectly comfortable receiving, passing and shooting. The useful length is the one that lets your hands move freely while the blade works in your normal skating posture.
Start near the usual fitting range, then judge the stick while moving. Your chin is available for measurements. It contributes very little to the breakout.
What the chin check actually gives you
Bauer’s buying guide (opens in a new tab) suggests roughly nose height in shoes, or between the chin and bottom lip in skates. CCM’s length guide (opens in a new tab) gives nose height without skates and chin height with them. Bauer’s separate flex and measurement guide (opens in a new tab) explicitly describes its recommendations as suggestions.
For someone buying a first stick, that is useful. It gets the shaft into a plausible range before the player has enough experience to describe a preference.
For a repeatable check at the shop, stand upright in your skates, plant the toe on the floor and hold the shaft vertically. Note where the cap falls. Keep that setup consistent when comparing sticks: a blade resting in a playing position produces a different mark, and shoes, bare feet and skates are different measurements too.
Then bend your knees, put both gloves on the stick and set the blade where you normally carry the puck. Two players of similar height can have different arm lengths, hand positions and skating postures. A face landmark cannot account for all of that.
Watch the top hand when the puck comes close
Length changes the relationship between your hands and the puck. With the shaft held at the same angle, extra length puts the blade farther away. Bringing that blade back toward the skates requires an adjustment somewhere: the shaft angle, the hands or the body.
That reach can be useful. A longer stick gives you more room to meet a pass away from your body or put a blade into a passing lane. The question is how comfortably you can bring the puck back under control afterward.
Watch a player move the puck from a wide forehand position toward the feet and across to the backhand. Does the top hand have room to travel in front of the body? Can the player make the move without standing up to clear the shaft?
A shorter setup may make those close touches feel easier. Take it too far, though, and the player may have to drop the shoulders or reach down awkwardly to keep the blade involved. The extra room around the top hand is worth little if ordinary passes become difficult to collect.
These are things to look for during a fitting, rather than a diagnosis from one missed puck. Skating posture and hand technique can create the same problems. A coach watching a few repetitions can help separate a habit from a length that keeps getting in the way.
Why an NHL photo will not give you a cutting mark
In a mic’d-up faceoff sequence, Leo Carlsson described Crosby’s stick (opens in a new tab) as “such a short, hard stick.”
That gives us an opponent’s impression during a stick battle. It supplies neither a measured length nor a flex rating.
Even a sample shown by its owner can need explaining. In Bauer’s equipment video with Auston Matthews (opens in a new tab), Matthews says he removed the extension and generally dislikes using a plug. Copy the sample without that explanation and you would include an extension he says he took out.
Game photos add more uncertainty. A deep knee bend lowers the player’s head. The top glove can hide the cap, and a shaft angled toward the camera looks shorter than one lying across the image. Estimating a precise chin, collarbone or nose landmark from that picture mixes stick length with posture and perspective.
Use professional players to notice possibilities worth trying. Before copying a length, you would still need to know how it was measured and how it works with the rest of the setup.
The cut changes more than reach
Bauer warns that cutting a stick makes it play stiffer, while adding an extension has the opposite effect (opens in a new tab). Shortening the setup changes the leverage available to bend it.
That matters when a player likes the handling of a shorter stick but starts struggling to load the shaft. Another cut might improve the clearance around the hands while making the shot feel worse. A lower starting flex could be the better experiment.
Check any cut markings and guidance supplied for the particular model. A universal claim that every inch adds the same number of flex points is too neat for sticks with different constructions and reference lengths. We cover the signs of an overly stiff junior setup in our flex guide.
Lie describes the angle between the shaft and blade; rocker is the curve along the bottom of the blade. Cutting the shaft preserves that blade geometry, but the player may change the shaft angle or hand position to accommodate the new length.
Watch the blade while receiving and passing in a normal stance. If the heel or toe keeps lifting where the player needs contact, look at the whole fit before taking off another inch. Our P88 article explains why lie and rocker can differ even within a familiar curve family.
Try the ordinary plays before making the next cut
Use your current stick as a baseline. If possible, compare another of the same model, curve and nominal flex at a nearby length. This keeps several variables reasonably close, although the change in length will still affect balance and bending feel.
Moving your top hand slightly down the existing shaft can give a rough preview of a shorter reach. It leaves extra shaft above the glove and changes the grip, so it cannot fully reproduce a properly finished stick. Borrowing a comparable stick is more useful when that option exists.
Wear your skates and gloves, and repeat a few plays you actually need:
- Receive while moving. Take passes in front, beside the body and slightly behind. Notice how often you need an extra touch to get organized.
- Bring the puck close. Move it from a wide forehand position toward the skates and across to the backhand. Watch the clearance around the top hand.
- Pass both ways. Include a backhand pass and a pass made while turning. A comfortable forehand shooting position is only part of the job.
- Release in stride. Use your normal wrist shot or snapshot and a realistic target. Pay attention to whether you can load the shaft and keep the blade under control.
- Reach, then recover. Collect a puck farther out or interrupt a passing lane, then bring the stick back into a useful position.
Repeat the comparison over more than a few shots. A familiar setup has an immediate advantage, while a spectacular first release can make you overlook several awkward passes.
If you decide to shorten the stick, make a small change and use it before cutting again. When you find a length that works, record it with clear endpoints and photograph how you measured it. That gives you something more dependable to bring to the shop than “about here” and a hand under your chin.
Leave a growing player room to play
It is understandable to leave a child’s stick long in the hope of getting another season out of it. Watch what that spare length asks the player to do today. If the top hand is continually trapped or the player has to stand up to move the puck across the body, the future fit is costing them something now.
At the other extreme, cutting a stiff senior stick down to a child’s height does not turn it into a junior stick. Shaft size, blade size and the ability to bend it still matter. CCM’s youth guidance (opens in a new tab) treats length, flex and shaft thickness as related fitting choices.
Start a new player near the usual chin-height range in skates and watch how the hands, blade and puck work together. Keep a setup that handles ordinary plays comfortably, even if another player of the same height prefers something different.
Before making the next cut, be able to name the play you expect it to improve. Then check whether it actually did.