Snapper

I pulled the following description from Wikipedia:

The snap shot is accomplished with a quick snap of the wrists while the puck rests in place. The difference between a snap shot and a wrist shot is that the hockey blade is accelerated towards the puck from a small distance behind it. This allows the player to flex the shaft on the ice and strike the puck at speed -- although not to the degree of a full slap shot…The stick is usually not lifted higher than the knee during the shot.

I tend to agree with everything about that statement, except the bold portion. In recent years, the term “half slap shot” has referred to a shot that resembles a slap shot, but with only half the wind-up (or the knee-high wind-up).

A snap shot is a far different animal. I like to use a face off dot as the representation of my wind-up space. With the puck in the center of the dot, my stick blade will stay within the diameter of the face-off dot and will get no higher than 4 or 5 inches from the ice.

You may be asking yourself “how do you generate any speed with that small a wind-up?” The answer is simpler than it sounds. 1) Speed is generated through the hips and lower torso. My weight is transferred from my back leg, driving my hip forward. Essentially, my lower body is rotating while my upper body is still. This generated torque between my lower body and torso. My upper body wants to rotate to catch up to my lower body, and accelerates to do so. With very little input (so far!) from my arms, my hands are already moving quickly. 2) I lower my shoulder and drive the toe of the stick into the ice. As stiff as they seem, all components of a stick flex when weight is applied. The stick blade flexes and flattens out for a split-second when it makes contact with the ice. The shaft of the stick also flexes, albeit not as severely as a slap shot will. The shaft and blade quickly snap back into position and helps accelerate the puck even more. The snap shot finishes with the same motion of a wrist shot; a snap of the wrists and a hard pull with the top hand, which turns the stick blade over.

A good, hard snap shot is a very hard shot for a goalie to pick up. It has no wind up, like with a wrist shot or slap shot, and it is as accurate as a wrist shot while being only slightly slower than a slap shot.