General

Pain-Off: Slapshot to Face vs. Line Drive to Face

Jun 3, 2008, 8:30 PM UTC

Over the past couple weeks, several athletes have taken hard objects off the face. Aside from being good for business, all this brain-jarring got me wondering which would be more painful: being hit in the face with a puck via a slapshot, or a baseball via a line drive?
â†µ
â†µExhibit A: During last night’s Penguins-Red Wings game, Ryan Malone takes a slapper right in the nasal region:â†µ

â†µ

â†µ
â†µ

Exhibit B: During the Padres-Cardinals game on May 21st, Chris Young takes an Albert Pujols liner square off the nose:â†µ

â†µ

â†µ
â†µKeep in mind that we aren’t talking specifically about these two examples, but in general, which would suck more: the puck or baseball to the grill? â†µ

â†µI suppose a decent case could be made for the baseball, based mostly on the horrible sound hardball to melon makes, but, to me, the clear cut winner here is the puck to the face. There are obvious factors which would make the puck more painful, most notably that it’s frozen, has edges, and is generally harder than a baseball. But what really puts the puck over the top is distance. â†µ

â†µ

â†µWhen a pitcher takes a liner to the face, he is 60 feet, six inches away from the batter (minus the couple feet that the pitching motion and follow through eat up). But when a hockey player takes a slapshot to the noggin, he is most likely within 50 feet or less of the shooter. This number is deduced from the standard hockey rink dimensions of 58 feet from the goal line to the blue line. Most slapshots are taken from inside the blue line and hit faces that are inside the goal line (as was the case in Exhibit A, where the shooter was a good 10 feet inside the blue line). â†µ

â†µ

â†µThe distance between the stick (or bat) and the face has to be the deciding factor because, in general, slapshots and line drives are both traveling around 100 mph. Not like I’ve done any research on the topic or anything. Now, if only we had interns then we could test this hypothesis.â†µ

â†µ

â†µ(Videos via Puck Daddy and Awful Announcing, respectively)â†µ

â†µ

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

See More: