NHL Combine (Bench Press) Numbers

Off Topic
101

[quote]texasguy wrote:
hockey is still gay and 150 lbs for ten reps as a max is still weak. try to argue that. [/quote]

No one is offended by you saying the weights are small. We all know that. But when you say stuff like “hockey is still gay” you’re going to piss people off.

The kids mentioned are the best draft eligible players. They also have weak benches. There are other players playing in the same leagues as these kids, who are extremely strong.

Unlike football or rugby, the top hockey players aren’t also the top athletes. Hockey is much more skill based.

You take the top athlete in the world (based on speed and strength) and place him in football, and he will most likely be a decent player even with little experience. Now take that same person and place him in hockey, AND HE’LL BE SHIT.

EDIT: I’m not trying to say the players mentioned in the article are bad athletes. I’ve played against a few of them. I’m sure you’d be more impressed by there deadlift or pullup numbers rather than there benches.

102

Tex-mex-guy:

Just. Stop.

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[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
texasguy wrote:
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
texasguy wrote:
I don’t really give a shit what everyones opinions on hockey as a sport are.

150 lbs for 10 reps is weak and funny. especially when the reporter says they really ripped it up.

if that is offensive, eat a hockey puck.

it’s pussy weight.

So they have a weak bench.

They should care because… uh… because it makes people on the internet call them mean names?

Come the fuck on dude. A hockey player shouldn’t care about his bench numbers.

that is really not the point. this thread is getting ridiculous. i didn’t realize so many people would be so offended at the hilarity of the comment “really ripping it up” over such piss poor numbers.

it’s just funny. get over hockey. those numbers are weak.

i seriously question yours and others strength. you being weak yourself is the only logical explanation for your level of offense.

I’m not offended. I just dont see the rational of judging hockey players on their bench press. Will having a bigger bench make them better players? No. So why make a test that doesnt reflect the sport?

Like I said earlier, why not test powerlifters for their one mile run time? Same concept.

You’re just complaining about a really stupid thing.[/quote]

whose complaining? i’m laughing at the excited “he really ripped it up” comment over piss poor strength and a multitude of so called dudes immediately wadded their panties.

i would laugh if a pro football prospect was praised for such weight too, or anyone really.

apparantly hockey fans are a bunch of uptight panty wads.

104

[quote]analog_kid wrote:
Tex-mex-guy:

Just. Stop.[/quote]

Is tex-mex-guy supposed to be an insult? it doesn’t even make sense. i’m not even mexican, but i do love some good tex mex food.

and i’ll keep replying to people who reply to me. i’m sorry if you are weak and offended, but the weight really is pretty piss poor.

105

[quote]
take the gracies as an example. they concentrate on skill and put very little emphasis on strength, and they have their asses handed to them now that the sport has blown up and attracts good, in shape and strong athletes.

now, the gracies may be able to kick your ass, yet against equally skilled but stronger opponents they lose. [/quote]

No offense, but that is totally off. It seems you’re only referring to Royce…because Renzo is a legit contender. On top of that, Roger is on the rise and should be fighting soon. There are also a handful of younger Gracie’s that are about to break their way into pro MMA. But back to the topic at hand. You don’t need to have a huge bench in order to be great at the sport. Go on the ice and let one of these 18 year old kids check you…see how strong they are then.

106

texas if it makes you feel better, I’m sure you have a bigger bench press than many soccer players, professional bowlers, marathon runners, skiiers, snowboarders, curlers, horseback riders, soccer players, skateboarders, chess players, and best buy salesmen.

Congratulations.

107

One of the more retarded threads I have seen in a while. Anyone calling hockey players pussies is a complete idiot. And anyone who needs to toss around his high school athletic accomplishments to get validation from strangers is a tool.

108

Texas, that article hardly seemed to be touting the “strength” of any of these participants. It seems more like the writer was quite overzealous when comparing the double digit reps done by certain players to the “dismal” 2 and 3 rep performances of others.

There’s no denying that such numbers, taken on their own, are hardly stellar and even downright laughable to someone with any semblance of experience in the weight room. As for the part about certain players wowing the room, that is clearly aimed at all the tasks as a whole and not aimed at the bench press alone.

And truth be told, I don’t think many 17 and 18 year old guys with little to no organized strength training will ever measure up to the strength levels that others would naturally assume they are supposed to be at. So to someone with any sort of quality training experience and knowledge of what is considered “real” strength, of course these numbers will seem beyond laughable.

Having said all that, “weight-room strength” has very little to do with how fast a player will skate, how hard he will shoot, how quick his release will be, how accurately he will pass the puck, or even how hard he will be able to hit.

More strength will always be able to enhance these aspects to a certain degree, but by and large, you either have it or you don’t when it comes to hockey, and the rest is just refining the details and developing the endurance to do what you do at a high rate shift after shift and period after period, as well as for injury prevention.

109

[quote]hockechamp14 wrote:
texas if it makes you feel better, I’m sure you have a bigger bench press than many soccer players, professional bowlers, marathon runners, skiiers, snowboarders, curlers, horseback riders, soccer players, skateboarders, chess players, and best buy salesmen.

Congratulations.[/quote]

You forgot golfers. And tennis players.

110

I bet Lance Armstrong doesn’t bench very much. He must be a pussy and cycling is a candyass sport for gays.

[NOTE]: I do not think that Lance Armstrong or any cyclist is a pussy, that is a sarcastic comment.

Really no-one is claiming that the numbers are not weak, they are. What people are taking offence to is the huge leap that you then make to claim that all hockey players are pussies and that it is a gay sport. That really doesn’t make any sense, especially given that age and experience of these players who aren’t even professional and won’t be for some years.

As many have said it is primarily a skill sport, which adds further weight to the idiocy of your comments.

Compare these figures with those of the youth training scheme of a Professional Football(soccer) Association Club in England, where soccer is the no.1 sport by a stretch and does attract the best athletes, and I would venture that they would not be disimilar. Bench press is simply not important for a skill sport that relies heavily on leg strength.

A better target for ridicule would be what on earth do the governing body hope to gain from such a pointless test as a bench press for reps from a hockey player???

111

[quote]texasguy wrote:
analog_kid wrote:
Tex-mex-guy:

Just. Stop.

Is tex-mex-guy supposed to be an insult? it doesn’t even make sense. i’m not even mexican, but i do love some good tex mex food.

and i’ll keep replying to people who reply to me. i’m sorry if you are weak and offended, but the weight really is pretty piss poor. [/quote]

No it’s not an insult. Just a lame play on your screen name and trying to offer a little advice.

I honestly don’t know why I would be weak or offended. Please feel free to beat a dead horse.

But if you want to call me weak go for it, cause I probably am by the standards on this site. To you, I probably don’t even look like I lift weights. I hate to take a genetic cop-out, but

I have a buddy who gets huge just by driving past the gym and lifts like a girl, I on the other hand trained harder than anyone else I saw at my gym(not that that would take much)and struggled with gaining any kind of real mass.

I haven’t been to a gym in about a year, but my best bench was 265 for 1.5 ugly reps. I had a bit of a metal block when it came to the bench. I put up some good numbers elsewhere however.

Looking through my old training log I was at a 395 10x3 deadlift, 5x5 175 overhead presses, and 235 front squat(pretty much 1RM by the looks of it). So fine, I’m weak.

Most of the stuff I enjoy doing is more endurance based so my training now reflects that and I spend a lot of time out side throwing, pulling, and hitting shit and I have a lot more fun than I ever did at the gym. Please don’t come an beat me up.

Best Wishes,

Anal-log kid

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[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
One of the more retarded threads I have seen in a while. Anyone calling hockey players pussies is a complete idiot. And anyone who needs to toss around his high school athletic accomplishments to get validation from strangers is a tool.[/quote]

He will be one of those guys at 40 showing grainy videos to everyone who visits his trailer of his ?awesome? high school athletic prowess.

For someone?s life to peak in high school is sad really.

113

[quote]GreenMountains wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
One of the more retarded threads I have seen in a while. Anyone calling hockey players pussies is a complete idiot. And anyone who needs to toss around his high school athletic accomplishments to get validation from strangers is a tool.

He will be one of those guys at 40 showing grainy videos to everyone who visits his trailer of his ?awesome? high school athletic prowess.

For someone?s life to peak in high school is sad really.

[/quote]

ya’ll can try to flip this all you want.

the subjects in the OP are highshool age.

comparing them to my numbers 6-7 years later while still training would really be unfair.

either way, this site is about strength and the numbers were funny.

it would be funny if the site were about basketball and a reporter was bragging that a hot shot really ripped it up by sinking 11% of his freethrows.

but it’s about strength, and a reporter called 10 reps at 150 lbs really ripping it up. and that is funny.

high school wasn’t a peak at all. i’m graduating college in december, i’m in better shape now than i was in high school, i have a job lined up as an accounts manager with an oil company in Houston and i can only see myself continuing to improve from there.

other than intramurals, i don’t play sports and probably won’t be playing any after college though i’ll still lift and may join another mma club. that depends on my job. i’m not going to show up to my office with black eyes, cauliflower ear and cuts.

flame if you want, but understand high school wasn’t a peak at all. i brought it up in the course of the topic at hand.

but, my accomplishments have shifted to relevent areas in my life now rather than sports.

now ya’ll can pull shit out of your ass, assume, deny what ever.

150 lbs is a funny amount of weight to brag about. it just is. i’m not comparing myself and getting off on being stronger than that, hell that is like taking candy from a baby.

i just think it is funny.

i also think it’s funny that you find that so offensive, and i think you are probably all vagina’s.

114

[quote]texasguy wrote:
it would be funny if the site were about basketball and a reporter was bragging that a hot shot really ripped it up by sinking 11% of his freethrows. [/quote]

…you really dont see the difference between a basketball player not shooting freethrows well and a hockey player not benching much?

Your comparison is laughable. Now, maybe if it was a site about basketball and sumo wrestlers were judged based on how many freethrows they made… that would be a usable comparison. Because sumo wrestlers should be expected to make a lot of freethrows because they arent basketball players, and having the skill of making freethrows wont help them reach their sumo wrestling goals. Yes, their numbers will be laughable compared to people who practice shooting freethrows.

Anyway, ever read this:

It?s home to bodybuilders, powerlifters, Mixed Martial Artists, and in fact, athletes of any kind who stand to benefit from increased size, increased strength, increased power, or increased endurance.

So apparently this isnt just a site about strength, its about other things too. Including endurance. And skill. And agility. Etc. Etc.

You keep chanting “150 for 11 reps is weak!!”… yet have no response when I’ve asked you, directly, why a hockey player should care if he has a weak bench.

115

You can’t always equate strength to athleticism. Or speed even. I’ve know guys who were weightroom hero’s but who hardly saw playing time. Same with some track guys. They could run a straight line really fast but that’s about it. Speed and strength are important but so are talent, coordination and mastering the mental aspects of your sport. Why aren’t cornerbacks in the NFL not receivers? They have the same physical toolbox. The fact that many cornerbacks have hands of stone may have something to do with it.

I do agree though that if you have a player who is strong and fast you have a great foundation to start with but take that player and give them finesse, balance, coordination and the ability to master the mental aspects of their sport and you’ve got a great. Sadly though Michael Jordans only come along once in a generation. Most players have to play to their strengths and try to minimize their weaknesses.

There is a huge diffrence between performance sports and ball/equipment sports and there are many ways of being athletic I would say that Lance Armstong and Shane Hammond fall on opposite ends of the athletic spectrum. Would you call either unathletic? Strength earned in the weightroom is just a means to an ends for an athlete. The ends being better at their sport. Who cares if your building a 400 pound bench you can’t translate that to being a better at what you do (and don’t say all thing being equal because things all things never are).

And to the guy who said that AI could be better then the greatest hockey player to ever lace up a pair of skates with just two years practice. Ninja please. There is a reason why you don’t see any Athletes play at the elite level of more then one sport. Most two sport athletes at thatlevel are good or great at one and okay at the other. Which is why I just have to shake my head whenever I hear someone say you could take an American Football or basketball playerand they could be dominant at any sport. Better then you or me. Possibly, probably. Better then the elite at that sport. Never.

116

Video of a couple of the kids at the combine here:

Bench pressing at around 3:45, I guess one of the best performances of the day at 10 reps…

How much would Gretzky bench when he was 17?

117

Why has this thread even reached 5 pages? Sure, these players don’t have the biggest bench numbers, but the reason for this is plain and simple; THEY DON’T NEED TO! It’s like a soccer player working on his max bench all off-season. How’s it gonna help them? The important thing is that they don’t have serious muscle imbalances.

Are their benches weak? yes. Are they pussies? Fuck no. Saying otherwise is stupid. You could probably outbench Muhammad Ali since he never even used weights but I’d bet he’d have whipped your ass all over Texas in his youth.

118

[quote]texasguy wrote:
StevenF wrote:
Having a big bench press does not make you a talented hockey player.

yeah but they are still big pussies. and that is funny. [/quote]

Wow. Have you ever put on skates, let alone try to play a game on them?

Your logic that a big bench press is a determining factor in athletic ability is simply laughable, frankly. How many

One could make the argument that the bench press test is fairly pointless in assessing any sport. Incline presses (particularly DBs) are more applicable to football than the BP.

DB

119

Are you out of your god damn mind? These arent fuckin trains crashing into eachother, they are weak fuckin dudes incapable of any show of strength. They punch like retards- overhand head strikes looking to break their dumb ass hands, or shoulder level right hands fired rapidly with hardly any force behind them whatsoever. They pull shirts like girls pull hair.

NHL players are not strong, and they don’t need upper body tankness, but is is apalling that pro athletes in any sport can be so pathetically weak. I mean come on, when I was 13 I benched 140 for 1, and by the time I was 17 I was doing 225 for reps and was never on a HS sports team like these guys were…with programs designed by alleged professionals…yet they still fail on rep number 13 with 150lbs? Hahaha …awful.

Who gives a shit how much you can squat unless you fight exclusively with your legs! Dumb! Giant legs with pipe cleaner arms and emaciated chicken breast torsos make a joke out of the term ‘professional athlete’.

Tiger woods plays golf and benches over 300 lbs. NHL guys arent NBA guys who are 6 feet 6 or taller, so have NO excuse for being so weak…bulk wouldnt make a NHL player less effective, so they neglect their upper body for no reason whatsoever and focus exclusively on the legs pretty much, but this is an assinine approach because in other real sports, much bigger and more muscular athletes exert themselves much harder and are able to maintain monster legs with monster pecs and monster arms and monster delts–NHL is fulla sissies anyway.

Why the hell is hockey even considered anything? Guys skating for an hour in an ultra low scoring game people only watch for the possible fight breaking out anyway. What other real sport allows players to FIGHT! NONE! why? because hockey isnt a real sport…it’s fuckin stupid.

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[quote]USNS physique wrote:
but is is apalling that pro athletes in any sport can be so pathetically weak.
[/quote]

While their benches were weak, they weren’t pro.

Hockey is more about…ya know…hockey than it is about fighting. Some can bench press in the 400s, which isn’t too shabby considering it’s a USELESS movement for them.

[quote]
Why the hell is hockey even considered anything? Guys skating for an hour in an ultra low scoring game people only watch for the possible fight breaking out anyway. What other real sport allows players to FIGHT! NONE! why? because hockey isnt a real sport…it’s fuckin stupid.[/quote]

So I guess soccer isn’t a sport in your eyes. A bunch of upper body-scrawny guys running for just over an hour in an even lower-scoring game where when they fight, all they do is fucking kick. Also, fighting is penalized in hockey, so it really isn’t allowed.

What would you consider a “real sport?”