StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Hockey: Physics on Ice (Part 2)

Episode Date: April 6, 2017

Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly explore the slippery science and skate technology that leads to speed – and collisions – in the world’s fastest, toughest team sport. With physicist Alain Haché, Bauer Hockey’s Craig Desjardin, NY Riveters captain Ashley Johnston.Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe on:iTunes Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360?mt=2Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-scienceTuneIn: http://tunein.com/radio/Playing-with-Science-p952100/SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-scienceGooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjqNOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Playing With Science. This is part two of our look at the fast and furious world of ice hockey. Part one, we lit up the net with the science of the shot and stick engineering and today we punch through even deeper into the science of the fastest and toughest sport there is yeah and helping us with the slippery subject of physics on ice we'll welcome back physics professor alan hashe who's also the author of slap shot science and the physics of hockey

alan is going to help us understand just how much force it's going to take to flatten your opponent against those boards. And who's not going to want to know that, okay? I'll tell you who. Me. We're even going to throw in the science behind the ice itself. No extra charge. There you go.

Lucky you. Once we've done that, we'll be chatting once again with our good friend and VP of product at Bauer Hockey, Craig Desjardins. And only this time, we're going to focus on the tech in the skates themselves. Yeah. And finally, we're going to hear from the captain of the New York Riveters, a mechanical engineer and a shutdown defenseman who's not a man at all. We're talking about Ashley Johnston. I love this woman. This woman is a hero of mine.

I'm sorry, people. She's into STEM. She is an athlete. She is the captain of her team. This is going to be a great show. She's an inspiration. So stay tuned. Just like the ice, it's pretty cool stuff.

So last show, we got into the tech with the stick. Right. Really opened it up, learned a lot about that. Professor gave us what was going on in the slap shot, the pass, everything else around it. Now we're going to get into the skates, and there's some real cutting-edge stuff regarding the skates. I see what you did there. Did you? Did you see that? Thank you very and there's some real cutting-edge stuff regarding the skates. I see what you did there.

Did you? Did you see that? Thank you very much. Skates, cutting-edge stuff. Thank you. They don't just throw this show together, you know. We've got that. Plus, as you said there, the professor's going to give us an insight into collision.

Yeah. And we know it's not a contact sport. Hockey is a collision sport. Gosh, you have said a mouthful there, man, because I got to tell you something. I look at these collisions. And the last collision that I watched, and I spent some time because I wanted to find a clip for us to get into the show with. So I've been watching hockey collisions for two days now. And I am pretty sure I have a concussion just from watching.

This is insane. These guys are crazy. Some of the biggest hits I have ever seen, and I'm a huge football fan. I love when guys level each other on the playing field of football. These dudes, it looks personal. I'm waiting for the guy to start going through his pockets and take his money the way they lay these guys out it is insane I feel just a little bit less of a man Gary

that's what I'm trying to tell you it kind of hurts I think I'm going to take up gardening ah dear okay it's quite simple

it's not a sport for the faint hearted you're going to have to be brave you're going to have to be tough and it's probably why they wear padding.

All right. While Chuck recovers, let's get to that first clip. I, too, wear a pad. Oh, no. Too much information. Too far. All right. Let's get that piece of audio now.

So we're going to take a look at Scott Stevens of the New Jersey Devils, who is known to be one of the hardest hitting players in NHL history. This guy is a beast. But what is scary is that in this particular clip, as they cross the blue line, Slava Kozlov is in front of the net, and he has a shot on goal. Now, of course, Stevens is a defenseman, and so he's like, my job is to make sure you don't even take the shot. That's what he does. And so what he does is, he comes across ice, and wham, he levels this guy. And when I say level him, I mean, not only does Kozlov collapse like a cheap card table, but he is knocked out.

I mean, knocked out cold. Okay. But before we run the clip, I have to say, when we come back, Chuck will be behind the desk worried. No. Worried. Get worried. I'm going to tell you right now. It's okay.

I watched this and I felt a little bit of my manhood drain out of me. I was like, this is not cool, man. I'm taking up gardening now. This is not like this. This should not be legal. This is a sport where a guy can come across the ice, hit you in such a way that is clean and legal, knock you out and people come over to him and go, yo, man, that was awesome. But everybody plays by the same rules. So that's why hockey is such a popular sport. All right. Well, let's take a look at Scott Stevens in action.

Detroit back in. Oh, Stevens stepped up, nailed him. Brodeur has got the puck. What a shot. Is that Rouse? Oh, lights out. No, that is Kozlov. Oh, baby. The one guy in this league.

I'm telling you, Victor Kozlov does not look like he is with us right now. What a smack. Scott Stevens, if you ask players around the league who's got the hardest hit, I wish your answer. Woo! Do you see what he does before he makes contact? Stick goes down. Stick goes down.

Because otherwise, sticks up. He's out. Well, yeah, now that's a penalty. So, yeah, but, I mean, woo! Quite often, the guys will anticipate the fact that if I'm near the puck, I'm getting hit. Mm-hmm. Your natural spider senses kick in.

Right. He never saw that coming. Well, you know it's so funny he was so so focused on about he was so focused

on taking the shot he was about to make a shot and he really had a nice shot on goal and never never happened so let's bring in now

somebody who can hopefully help me okay alright while Chuck takes a deep breath, I will introduce someone we are familiar with from our first show, Professor Alain Hachet from Moncton University in Canada, author of Slapshot Science and the Physics of Ice Hockey. Alain, welcome back. You saw that clip. Are you in the Yeah, that's what happens, school. Or are you with Chuck?

Yeah, that's not a pleasant experience, I'm sure, for Kozlov there. Thanks for the overstatement there, Dr. Hache. I like it. I like it. Way to get in there with a controversial statement. So, okay. I mean, there's different types of collisions in the game or sport of hockey.

Now, I can see a guy, a big guy hit a smaller guy, and the big guy bounces off. Now, I'm looking at that saying, I don't quite understand what happened there, but there must be some basic laws of physics that means that actually can happen. There must be some basic laws of physics that means that actually can happen. Yeah, as a matter of fact, when you look at a collision, the force on each player or each body that collides is always the same. That's called action-reaction. Okay.

So it's always the same force, except that if you're a lighter body, you'll accelerate much more faster. So you'll suffer a bigger displacement. All right. accelerate much more faster so you'll suffer a bigger displacement or all right you know if you have a small car against the trucks and they'll experience the same force but because the truck is much heavier the guy inside will not notice as much so so yeah if the smaller guy is going faster than the the bigger guy then you know you might have a chance to knock him over but uh yes indeed there are different types of collisions the mid-ice collisions that we saw um uh with uh scott stevens are fairly rare they're dangerous yes yeah most collisions happen along the board right so when you have an almost

stationary player against the board and then the other guy comes, and then you have this absorption by the board, because the boards will tend to move a little bit, so you will not suffer as much impact. So now, are you saying that from a standpoint of physics, when a player is up against the boards, and you hear that crash, and you hear the sound of the board making the thunderous kind of warble uh that the board itself is acting as a shock absorber for the one player hitting the other player yes so so the bigger the distance okay the smaller the force okay okay so actually being hit against the boards it's better i. I like the idea. It's safer. It's safer. Because I know where my position is. I'm playing on the outside.

So now, is that because all of the impact is absorbed by the player when you are on center or open ice? Like, what is the physical difference that makes, is it, just from a physics standpoint, give me the physics difference between the two of them that makes the board safer. So, in the mid-ice collision, you have two guys coming, oftentimes, you know, a lot of times in opposite directions at approximately equal speed. Okay. So, that makes the relative speed much higher, whereas against the board, then you have a guy which is already against the board, so he cannot move further, and then one other guy comes and hits him.

So the relative velocity is less in the second case. So from a physical equation, from a physics equation, it's the relative velocity that is the factor here that's at play. So in the open ice, the relative velocity is higher. So the hit is more devastating against the board. No matter what you do, the relative velocity will be lower. And so the hit is not as devastating. Yep. You got it. Wow. So when we talk to NFL guys, particularly linemen, they always talk about the low guy wins when they're tackling, when they're hitting at the line of scrimmage. Do we have a similar scenario in hockey where the guy with the lowest center of gravity

can make a more devastating hit or maybe a bigger guy? Yes, although there's not that big of a difference in height between players oftentimes. So it wouldn't, there's quite a big difference in size, but what will, what will happen sometimes one guy will crouch over. Okay. So go lower and that that's very dangerous because the other guy will get, you know, absorb all the impact on his hips or his legs. And that's quite dangerous.

Yeah. And you've seen that where guys get low bridge and you see them go flying. They just take flight. Let's kind of switch gears now and go from the end of this thing, which is the collision, to how it starts, which is the skating. Give us just an elementary breakdown of the physics the skating. Give us just an elementary breakdown of the physics of skating. What is

happening when someone is skating? Well, it's a little bit complicated, but one could say that the main difference between skating and running is that during skating, your foot is not going at the speed as the ice is going under yourself you whereas running you have to move your feet as fast as you're running but in skating because you're pushing sideways like this the side motion of the skate is much slower than the actual speed of the player so that's how they propel themselves they will put their blades slightly open like this and start pushing side to side, exerting force, propelling themselves forward. So they have to push back to go forwards?

They have to push back to go forwards, yes. Yeah, they have to. Now, you can attain much higher speeds because you have low friction. It's very slippery. And because of that fact that you don't have to move your feet as fast as you're running, that's the main difference here. But it takes a certain technique because if you want to accelerate fast, then you have to bend your knee. You have to get low in order to lower your center of gravity in order to propel yourself faster. Sometimes you see kids, they try to go fast,

but they're staying straight up like this, and that's very difficult to accelerate. Can you skate as quick backwards as you can forwards? And if not, why not? forwards and if not why not oh very good question um no you can't uh you can skate quite fast but you can never uh it's just the way the leg is designed it's designed to move a certain way so that the knee bends uh you know forward uh if it was the other way around i assume that we could skate backward as fast but no i, it's not a symmetrical situation where if you turn around, you cannot exert the same power as if you're skating forward.

Okay, so thank you for breaking down the physics in skating. Without the ice itself, this is a particularly different game. A lot tough to do this in a pool of water. Thank you. You're in Canada, and they tell me that you are blessed

with the best ice. Why? How? Please explain. I'm not sure that's true necessarily. I think... Well, let me put it to you this way. Growing up in Canada, I know a guy.

He now lives in Vermont, but he skates on ponds. And he played hockey growing up, skating outdoors on a solidly frozen pond. And when you look at the ice inside of a stadium, I'm trying to figure out how they keep this ice so hard with the body heat of 20,000 people. It's indoors and sometimes it's summertime. So like, is there a difference in fast and slow ice? Ice that is so frozen, solid, so hard like that of the ice that's three three and a half feet thick on a pond and the ice in a in an arena which is only a few inches thick so is there a difference between fast and slow ice yeah um it's a it's true that you want to keep the ice at a temperature of around say minus seven to minus 10 degrees celsius so that would be around the 20s i I guess, in Celsius. If it gets too warm, close to the melting temperature, it gets soft. And then when you're skating on it, you're digging deep into the ice and that slows the skate.

If it's too cold, then the friction coefficient is not as good. It's not as slippery when it's really, really cold. Okay. Yeah, so they want to keep it at a certain temperature. And it's absolutely true that it's difficult to do that in the stadium outside i remember there was a game in pittsburgh outside uh penguins and i forgot the other team but uh it was a challenge because it was rainy on top of that and the rain falls on the ice and makes kind of like it makes it slushy and it's

very difficult to get good ice outdoor in any condition. The indoor ice usually is much better. Am I right, Ella, in there being conflicting theories of how you're able to skate across the surface of the ice, one being pressure, the other being vibrating molecules on the surface? pressure the other being vibrating molecules on the surface is one theory going to be debunked or is it a case of maybe it's the two together yeah it turns out that ice uh itself if you look at it with microscopes very powerful microscopes uh you look at actual water molecules they're actually uh on the top surface they're very uh mobile so it's almost like a semi-liquid type thing it's ice is by itself wet you don't have the surface of it is is wet even if it's

microscopically um thick it's very very thin but uh it's there and that's what makes ice it's a very unique material because we don't know very many other solids that are as slippery as ice. But because of that, we have winter sports. Without that, winter sports would be not possible. Am I right in saying the molecules vibrate vertically rather than horizontally? Because if they were horizontal, it would just be a liquid surface. No, they vibrate in all directions. It's just that they're not attached.

The molecules that are under the ice have neighbors everywhere, and they're linked. They have bonds held into place, whereas the ones at the top, they don't have anything upstairs, so they're kind of dangling there. Sounds like me. Alan, thank you for putting me right on that one. Because there's, you know, there's a lot of sort of written evidence about molecules vibrating.

But we have a definitive explanation there from a professor. Who knew they were actually vibrating? This is, yes, this is good news. Absolutely. I don't know why. I'm not sure why that's good news, but it is. So, okay, so they indeed are vibrating. Yes.

Which is cool. Now, the blade on the actual ice surface creates a pressure that causes a molecular change in the ice to an actual extremely thin layer of water that causes the skate to then glide on a sheet of water, which immediately refreezes once the skate has passed over it. Is that also true? Yes. So what you're referring to is what's called pressure melting of ice. There's actually a very neat experiment you can do. You take a long blot of ice and then you attach a copper wire around it and you suspend two masses. attach a copper wire around it and you suspend two masses and the weight of the masses will make the wire cut into the ice because it's melting right under the wire, turning to water. And then right on top, it becomes ice again. So the wire will just cut through the ice and will fall down and the ice will be intact. And the ice will still be a block of ice.

Yes. Okay. So yes, this still be a block of ice. Yes. Okay, so yes, this happens under a skate as well. So if you're looking at the sharp edges of the blade, you have a very, very small area and a lot of force applied, so you can melt the ice, and that's probably playing a factor as well, except that it cannot explain why, say, a puck, which has a big area under and is very light, say a puck which is has a big area under and it is very light can also um slide on the ice fairly easily with exactly the same almost exactly the same friction coefficient and that explains it so ice itself is slippery but you can help it by yeah liquefying some of a layer of water on top that

will help lubricating the surface but without without it, even with low pressure, something can slide easily on the ice. Ah, there you have it. So we have a both and. Both. So we have a both and, not an either or. Yeah. Yes.

This is awesome. We are solving the problems of the world right here, okay? That's all I'm saying. This is wonderful. Professor, with your experience as a player, with your knowledge as an expert in the field of physics, can you see hockey embracing science to take itself even further forward as a sport? I think it's under a lot of help by the industry. There's technological improvements.

Every year, they come up with new products uh more we were talking about collision before well there's better equipment new materials they can use as paddings new types of uh materials for skate blades new design in the boots new sticks etc so i think there is a lot of uh improvement in the sport uh by um companies that provide equipment there's also uh improvements in the way they measure uh hockey players um you know they acquire a lot of data now just uh their position on the ice how fast they go maybe they get tired they slow down a little bit and then analyze those data but those are things teams will do, like professional teams will do that to try to optimize their team as best as they can. Awesome.

Wow, man. Well, thank you so much. This has been absolutely fascinating and quite a little education. It's been revelational. Professor Alan Hachet, thank you so much for your time. Been a pleasure to have you on our show. Please, listeners, go and check out the professor's books, Slapshot Science and the Physics of Hockey.

If you've enjoyed listening to him, I'm sure you'll be interested and thrilled reading his work. We will take a break. And just as the professor touched on before, interesting technological developments in the equipment. And who better to tell us about it but Craig de Jardin at Bauer Hockey to discuss all of that next on Playing With Science.

Do not go away. Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Playing With Science. Yes, you know that because you're so tuned in and you're here from the beginning. And today, as you know, we are exploring the world of hockey, a.k.a. Physics on Ice.

Not to be confused with Disney on Ice, which is not nearly as good. No, not at all. No. And now joining us by video call to break down all the technology that goes into skate, the Dine. And if you just think it's a boot with a blade, oh, you're so wrong. Stick around. Craig the Dine and the vice president of product of Bauer Hockey will tell you otherwise. Craig, good to have you back on show two, my friend.

Thanks for coming back, man. We're excited. Thank you, guys. Yeah, man. it thank you guys yeah man as we did in show one with the the hockey stick a little bit of history because weren't bauer the originator of the first sort of complete riveted blade boot lace-up scenario way back in the 30s around about the time i was born before you say it yeah exactly you know just taking uh what essentially was a boot and something as novel as attaching a steel blade so they could skate across the frozen pond or to get where they were going and sort of morphed into, you know, we're very fortunate to have about 70 percent of NHL players in Bauer skates. Yeah.

It's very exciting. That's good. And it's true. I mean, when you go to a sporting goods store, even when you look at the skates, you guys are still there, too. Like, how much – I mean, you don't have to tell us this because maybe this doesn't make a difference, but how much market share do you guys have? 90%? Yeah. What are you guys like?

Are you really up there? Are you like about 90-something percent of the market, Bauer skates? I don't mean all equipment. I mean just skates. It's not quite that high, but it's relatively high. I know it is, man. All right. For those of you who can't see Craig's face, it has got a grin the size of.

It's like a Cheshire Cat grin. Like the rest of them disappeared. His smile stayed there. There's no arrogance. No, no arrogance. It's just, you know what? We're really pleased that we have this slice of the market. So you've gone through the perforated chassis phase, am I right?

And now you're on to oven-baked, heat-molded skates with carbon fiber. Am I right? Because that's something I could never have imagined was happening. Well, you know, before you even get into that, just give us a breakdown of like the history of a skate. Hockey has gotten so much faster. Yeah.

I mean, you know, I'm not going to profess to be like the biggest hockey fan, but I have always been a fan. I am a Philadelphia Flyers fan. Thank you very much. Yes. We won't hold it against you. I know. I know you were going to say that. I know you were going to say that.

I knew you were going to say that. But we are a team that is steeped in the tradition of hockey, okay? A lot of history there. My Broad Street bully is going all the way back there. The orange and black forever. But anyway, when you look at these older clips and you look at hockey from back in the day, these guys are not moving nearly as fast as they are right now. Is that because of skate technology advancements? And if so,

can you give us kind of a breakdown as to what has happened to skates and why hockey has become so much faster? It's an interesting question. I think definitely part of it is the athlete and how they train because I think that portion of the game is significantly involved. But from, very traditional, were all made similar. And the Vapor 8 skate was a one-piece quarter. It was roughly 20% lighter than any skate that players have seen out there. And instead of having that traditional lacing profile, it was more aggressive. So players could really not only flex forward more easily, but they had a better feel for the ice because there was less interference between their foot and the blade. How much do players talk to you about the transmission between the ice and their own foot inside the boot? So do they talk about that?

Is that, as you say, so vital to them to be able to feel intimately what's going on beneath them? Which is funny because you hear that from race car drivers about their tires, how the tires give the road a certain feeling. Is that the case, what Gary just said about the ice and the blade and the skate? Is that the case, what Gary just said about the ice and the blade and the skate? That's actually a great analogy because you wouldn't want to put, you know, Formula One tires on a Pinto. Absolutely. You know, you're talking about these elite level athletes and sometimes it's hard to articulate what they're feeling. what they're feeling. But I think anytime that, you know, when they take those first three steps,

they're crisper, they feel like the energy transfers is pure. Um, and we're eliminating the slop that comes from a skate that is either loose fitting or too bulky. And then players not only feel more responsive, they also feel more agile because as they're crossing over or running into those quick stop and goes, their ability to move their feet and articulate their ankles quicker is also part of the benefit. So how have you managed to eliminate that slack within the boot itself? Well, you know, especially in our high-end skates, we use a manufacturing process that's called 3D compression molding. So if you look at the skate from the rear, it actually mirrors, you know, the actual shape of your foot. So the ankle bone and the articulation of the heel and the beauty of the curved composite materials that we use is you can take that whole skate,

put it in a skate oven, heat it up in about three minutes, and you can further shape that material around, whether it's a bone spur or any specific nuances of someone's foot so they have that purely customized fit. It's a bespoke boot for the elite players exactly they must love you that's i mean we're talking cinderella this is a this is

absolutely fabulous i don't know any other elite sports where that attention to detail for a foot for footwear actually takes place well you, let's take it one step further. So an often overlooked element is the blade, so what's below the boot of the skate. Yeah. And we came out with a technology a couple of years ago called Lightspeed Edge, and what you can essentially do is there's a little trigger

and you pull the trigger on the blade and you can remove the steel and what we're seeing is because every player much like the blade of a stick has preferences on their sharpening hollow yeah um uh or whatever rocker they can essentially go to the bench uh pull the trigger remove the steel and put in a new one. And there's players who have two to three sets a game. What you have done is kind of like in the NFL, and I'm sure any real football fans will know this, and probably in any other sports where they use cleats,

you can change your cleats now. If the field is sloppy, then you can change your cleats and you put in a longer, deeper cleat. If the field is dry and then you can change your cleats and you put in a longer, deeper cleat. If the field is dry and kind of dirt-like, you want to put in a shorter cleat so that you can get a better feel for the ground under your feet. So you can do that same thing for the player with the blade. Well, you can do it on ice conditions, and there's also the dynamic in hockey where a player will go crashing into the net or into the boards or unfortunately break their steel and lose an edge. Yeah. So it's the combination of both, and we're trying to cover for all those factors.

So it's a great advantage for those players who, you know, if they're not scoring a goal and they need to change something up, that's an option. Or if they lose an edge during the game, they're not wasting five minutes or a couple shifts. They can change it in 20 seconds. When you say lose an edge, it's that sharpness on the blade itself, right? Exactly. Now, that's how in tune a player is, that he will know the edge has gone on his blade. Really? Yeah.

I don't skate, so I'm clueless. But that's how, you talk about the transition of knowledge between the ice and the player. It's so intimate. That's insane, the fact that you will know, like, wow, my skates are dulling up. I've got to get a better edge on my skate. That's pretty wild. Yeah, and I think in its purest sense, what we're trying to do is create the sensation

of having your bare foot with a blade attached to the bottom of it. And if we can create that sensation on the ice and have that sort of energy transfer happening, then that's an advantage for the player. Let me ask you one last question about the anatomy or the design of a blade itself. So I've seen that the blade is actually not a flat metal surface. It's a little curved, hollowed surface.

Can you tell me why is that? Why is it shaped like that? Well, I think, you know, it's sort of curved in both ways. So you have a hollow so that because you skate on both your inside and your outside edge. I got you. So it's like having two blades on one blade. Yeah, it's almost like you can imagine skiing, turning left and right. Similar phenomenon.

So depending on your skating style, some people, it's almost like a ballroom dancer. You have, whether you're big or small, some people are quick on their feet and move more fluidly and some don't. So you can really fine tune that based on skating style. What next? You've advanced the sport so far with the equipment. What next without giving away every one of your secrets? Well, you know what, I think there's a couple of things. one of your secrets? Well, you know what? I think there's a couple of things. I think we're really taking a closer look at, uh, how do we take customization of equipment to the next level? Because we are seeing not only, uh, advantages by reducing their weight, um, but we're also looking at, because hockey is a game of agility. So it's not like speed skating, which is more like NASCAR.

We're more like Formula One where there's these quick accelerations, change in direction. So the ability to fine tune that equipment. I think the other aspect is technology and how technology is integrating with equipment. integrating with equipment. So players are looking for feedback not only on their biometrics, heart rate, pulse, sweat, things like that, but also if you could know either as a training tool or on ice how fast you're skating, your location, so is your positioning sound if you're a left winger versus a right winger.

Right. So I think we're actively looking at how technology can be infused in equipment to give players not only an advantage performance-wise, but also to help them become better players. Wow. So let's switch gears for a quick second when you talk about helping players. I am still just flabbergasted by the fact that the hits in hockey are just so devastatingly difficult to watch. I mean, these guys flying across the ice, sometimes at 30-something miles an hour, wham, hitting one another. The collisions many times are far greater than what they are in football. And, you know, football has some of the most spectacular collisions that you will find.

What do you guys see in terms of helping players protect their noggin when it comes to, you know, taking those kinds of hits? So I think there's kind of two exciting things that we have in the works. I think one, you know, if you look inside a helmet compared to, you know, a helmet six or seven years ago, they've changed dramatically because what we're seeing in the game is you have these low energy impacts, sort of a player getting bumped. You have high energy impacts, which are sort of the bigger hits and collisions. And then you have sort of rotational impacts, which are energy from and manage all those different types of impacts. So that's one where we're able to simulate rotational hits and all those different types of impacts in our lab and recreate exactly what's going on on ice.

and recreate exactly what's going on on ice. I think the second part to that is we're coming out with a technology this year in the Canadian market called Neural Shield, which is essentially a collar that players can wear around their neck. Sweet. And what it's doing is actually simulating, if you can imagine what a woodpecker does and how many times a woodpecker hits a tree, and you've got to wonder how there's no sort of head injury

related to the amount of force it's applying. Being able to essentially maintain a slightly higher blood volume around your brain. Okay. higher blood volume around your brain. Oh, okay. No different than when you're coughing or you get up in the morning and there's more blood flow. What that does is act as almost like a bubble. Yeah, you're cushioning from the inside of the head itself. Exactly. That's insane.

No, it's brilliant. We're looking at technology that can protect from the outside and from the inside. Well, when I say insane, I mean... No, no, I get the way you meant it, yeah. But that is, that's awesome. I mean, that is something that can actually span all sports, where head injuries can be a problem, right? That's exactly it.

Game changer. That is a game changer. Yeah, so we applaud you. Anything that can protect an athlete, particularly in a collision sport like hockey, yeah, absolutely to you and your technical and engineers and all the little science bunnies you have there. Yeah, good luck with that one. Fabulous.

Let me tell you something. I'm going to keep an eye on that because the moment you guys break through on that, I've got to buy some Bauer stock. The moment you guys break through on that, I got to buy some Bower stock. Craig, once again, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for your time. Thank you for allowing us insight into what you do with your company. And we wish you all the very best.

And we hope to have you back in the future. Gentlemen, it's been a blast. Thank you very much. Very kind of you to say. Thank you so much. Wow. What we learned. Yeah, man, that's some great stuff right there. I am super excited.

Okay, another break. When we come back, we will have a defenseman, Ashley Johnston, from the New York Riveters, captain as well as being a mechanical engineer, sports and science combined in one person. Stick around. We'll be back shortly.

Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And this, of course, is Playing With Science. And today we've been exploring the science of skating and collisions in the fast and furious world of ice hockey. Did you like that? That was my shushing of the ice. That's okay. Enough of that. Happy? Yeah, I was happy.

I had to do it. Because he's happy. Joining us now by video call is Ashley Johnson, captain of the New York Riveters. Ashley, welcome to the show. Absolutely fabulous because you're not just a hockey player. You are a mechanical engineer. And if Bill Nye was here, he would be in the not worthy position. He would absolutely adore you. So welcome to our show. Thanks for having me, guys. I'm really excited to be on.

Yeah, it's very cool. Let me ask you, you know, first of all, such a wonderful marriage of science and sport. How did you get into hockey? Because, you know, there's a strange sport as far as I'm concerned for a young girl to say, you know what, I want to play hockey. Unless you're Canadian, you know. So I am Canadian. Oh! Ta-da! Okay. Well, there you have it.

So I was basically born with skates on. Yes, you were. Yes, you were. Looking at both sides of you, did you bring any of your mechanical engineering thinking to your game? Yeah, I definitely, I play a lot more of a strategic game i'd say uh so you know simple things like i love using the boards to make a pass um because things like you know the angle that you pass the puck into the board is the same angle that's essentially going to come out at uh things like that. So that's definitely a big one, as well as just simple strategic plays,

like set plays. I love things like that. They just really work out well. It's like one big game of risk. All right, cool. So when you look at your background in robotics, Well, when you look at your background in robotics, which, you know, before I actually say that, before I actually say that, we should let people know that you lead a prosthetic that actually grows with a child who has lost a limb. Am I correct there? Is that the right way I'm saying it right? Yeah, that's all correct. So at my work, which is a company called PVA, I lead an industrial slash manufacturing engineering team here. So we basically do a lot of work on the assembly line, how the robots go together.

And then while I was in college, I developed an adjustable prosthetic prototype. So with the idea being that as children grow, the prosthetic would fit the stump a lot better because it would be adjustable in essentially every asset. a lot better because it would be adjustable in essentially every asset. And before your invention, your innovation, children basically had to buy a new prosthetic every few years as they grew, right? Yes, that's correct. So think of it like a shoe. Essentially, you don't have the same shoe size for your entire life.

As you're growing, you're continually having to buy new shoes, except for prosthetics are exceptionally more expensive than shoes. On top of that, you're spending a lot of money for something that doesn't really totally fit you. It's kind of like wearing shoes that are half a size too big or half a size too small just because of how much the stump swells throughout the course of a day. So let me ask, if you think about a teenager, the growth spurts that you can go through in the short space of time. It could be weeks and a month. And there you are.

You're back down there buying a new one. Families must love you. There are families that just love you. For sure. Do families just stop you in the airport like, yo, we love you? That's got to happen. Yeah. That's fantastic.

No, definitely not. It's still to happen. Yeah. That's fantastic. No, definitely not. It's still a prototype. So it's still something that has a long way to go before it becomes a commercial product. Well, I saw it and I think it's an ingenious design and I just love the way, what Ashley did for those, since I don't want to talk about it without explaining it though. And I hope I'm explaining it correctly. and I hope I'm explaining it correctly, but you use like a bladder that it can be inflated the same way like you pump up a shoe. No, I'm with you.

You know what I mean? And then there's an adjustable strap around that. And then the same way that you, if you think of the crutches that have the little pin in them that allow for different heights on a pair of crutches. You've done that with the stem of the prosthetic for like a leg. And so the person can, it can literally grow with that person. I think it's ingenious.

I applaud you. I have to say, prototype or not, I have a feeling it's going to work and you should be very proud of yourself. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. So let me ask you with this. When it comes to the innovation that you find in putting together something like this and leading a team of robotics, are there any parallels that you can draw to being the captain of a professional hockey team? Yeah, for sure.

You know, science, leadership, it's everywhere. sure uh you know science leadership uh it's everywhere um so when you're leading a team uh in an industry or leading a team on the ice it's essentially going to be the same thing kind of focusing a group of people towards one common goal whether that common goal is um you know building a robot building a prosthetic winning a championship it's really just uniting everyone and kind of trying to bring out the best of everybody so that you all fit together as one big puzzle and can cohesively achieve your goal. So at the moment, you've got a couple of big games on the horizon. Have you got a semi-final of a playoff?

And is it the Isabel Cup that you're in? That's correct. So your leadership skills can't be doubted then, Chuck, can they? By the way, Isabel Cup's so much better of a name than Stanley. Just saying. Do you ever think they were married?

Isabel and Stanley. Anyway, I'll ask you what you think your chances are, but that's kind of a leading question and you might not want to answer it. So I'll understand. So, well,

I'm going to knock on wood, but I think we have a good chance, you know, over one of the things we've been talking about is throughout the season, really peaking at the end of the year. So peaking during the championship season. So we're playing our best hockey at the right time. And I think trajectory has definitely been right on that course.

All right. Let me ask you about when I look at your physical play. You know, you're somewhat taller than most women, period. A little bit taller than many of those on the ice with you. Is that an advantage in hockey or a disadvantage? And how do you use it or overcome it, depending upon what it is? Yeah, for sure. So most people see me, so I'm six feet tall. And the first question that they have is, oh, you play basketball or stick. So I kind of missed the boat on that one.

I'm actually awful at basketball. But for hockey, it has its benefits just in the sense that my stick is a lot longer than most other players. So with that, my reach and my poke check can kind of overcompensate for the faster, smaller females who are skating around. Obviously, having very strong quads and a lower center of gravity is really beneficial in hockey um but i kind of get to have the upper end in the sense of that for the couple steps that somebody might have on me i gain it back by having a foot longer stick um so it's definitely one of the big ways that's helped me is there any other ways that you've because of your physique adapted yourself to the game of hockey and found a way because you obviously are quite a good thinker found a way to exploit that as an asset outside of the length of

the stick yeah for sure so also like body positioning um just because i am bigger. If I have proper body positioning, I can typically really use my strength, my side, to overpower a smaller player. That's definitely been a huge one. And then also just, again, the mental side of the game. So if I know where the puck's going to be before somebody else does, then I can get there. I get a head start. So whenever you have a head start, you have a much higher chance of winning.

And also at the same time, you can almost say using a little bit of probability in there and understanding that if somebody's momentum is so much and if they're going so fast, then the chances of them getting there first, okay, well, maybe I should go over here instead. That's the science thinking. Probability, the working out of the vectoring of where, when, no, I need to be here, pop, right place, right time. Nice. So let me ask you, because you're known as,

and I have done a little bit of reading, and it's been said several times in anything that's written about you, shut down defenseman. I'm going to say shut down defense person. Okay. shut down defenseman i'm going to say shut down defense person okay uh what is necessary to be a shut down defense person in the game of hockey uh so i think exactly what i was talking about before basically the calculation of knowing where people are going to be beforehand okay it's huge um because then if you're able to meet them sooner and take away the time and space if a

player has a lot of time and space they have a lot more time to think and then that typically will result in them um producing a better play than they would have if they had to make it rush so same thing if you're doing a math problem all the time in the world you're probably going to get more likely to go to the right answer than if you have a 30-second countdown clock. Gotcha. So, yeah. So, that's a huge component of it. Ashley is out thinking her opponents, Chuck.

There you go. Yeah, yeah. See? I mean, in a very – And you know what I love is the fact that the way that you said that is very humble. That's it. Very humble. It's not like – because the real answer is, oh, I'm smarter than you.

See, here's the real deal. I'm smarter than you. I'm out thinking you on the ice. That's what I'm doing. That's not Ashley. That's just, that's the whole personality. All right, let's flip it outside of you. And we'll turn it two ways here.

What technical advantages or advances have you seen in hockey since you started to play? And what sort of technical scientific advances would you like to see come to your sport? So definitely one of the biggest ones has been the sticks. All right. They've been absolutely – so now they're kind of a – so originally you had the wood, like your typical wood stick. Now it's a lot more of the fiberglass. Actually, some of them even have Kevlar weaved inside of them, some of the Bauer sticks. So from that composite, you're basically getting the best of both worlds where it's structurally sound enough to be a puck or sorry to be a stick and and not fall apart on you but

you still when you have your force going down can get that flex um and that flex what makes your shot a lot more powerful and additionally one of the things that has been worked on a lot is the feel of the puck so not only are you getting that um again that that flex factor but also as soon as the puck's on your stick, but you can literally feel it all the way up the shaft to your hands. What's your preference, mid or low flex point? I like the low flex point just because I find it's a little bit more, a little bit better for how I shoot. Just because I'm taller and I typically don't bend my knees as much.

and I typically don't bend my knees as much. Having that little extra bit at the end of the stick really helps the whip factor, so when your blade's coming through. Have you got your hands on those new Bauer skates that are heat-molded and have the carbon fiber little trigger blade things? Have you got your hands on those yet? Yes, so I have a pair of those.

Absolutely, I love them i i think that they're they're amazing especially the heat molding factor of it really does like wrap around your foot so it feels so how do you feel now wearing a boot like that and being able to feel exactly what's beneath your foot or feet uh it's i mean so if you think about it you're skiing around on like a you know a couple millimeter thick blade on ice uh so it's incredible to be able to have that sort of agility that that boot allows you to have as well as just uh even the science behind the metal on it that you're melting the ice while you're skating um and that's how you're really you're truly moving is a pretty cool factor if pretty cool factor. If you, if you want a hard skate,

you feel your blade afterwards, you can actually feel a little heat coming off of it. Sweet. Nice. Well, you know what you are, uh, I can't tell you just, uh, how impressive you are just all across the board, uh, who is a leader in mechanical engineering, a leader in sports, a person who is an innovator. You're just impressive all the way around. You should be very, very proud of yourself. I want to go and kiss your parents and tell them that, you know, they've done a fantastic job.

And, you know, I want you to call. You're in the love mode, aren't you? I am. And I want you to call my daughter and let her know that, you know, everything that she wants in this world is possible. And we're just so happy that you came on the show. Thanks so much. Ashley, you're an inspiration. And we wish you and your team the very best of luck in your future games.

And you're elite in both the field of science and sport. And that's exactly what playing in science is all about. So thank you so much for being on the show. It's been fabulous. Yeah, thank you guys so much for having me. This was great, and I really enjoyed it. So thank you very much. Pleasure's ours.

All right. Thank you. So, Chuck. Yes. Physics. That's our show, yes. Physics. On ice.

On ice. Alan Hachet opened our minds to everything that goes in with Slapshot. What we can find out, physics and science on the ice. Then Craig Desjardins lets us inside the secrets that go into Bauer products. Right. And then we have an inspiration of a player, a leader from the New York Riveters. You know, I think overall it was a great show. That's what I'm going to say.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. I'm Chuck Nice. And this has been Playing With Science.