hockey stick

Noun

hockey stick (plural hockey sticks)

1. (Canada, US) A stick used to handle the puck in ice hockey, having a flat, angled blade at the end.
2. (UK, field hockey) A stick used to handle the ball in field hockey, having a flat-faced hook at the end.
   • The game itself, though played by men, was probably meant to enact a mediation of the opposites of male and female, with a circular puck being the feminine symbol and the phallic hockey stick being the masculine symbol.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 184
3. A playing card with the rank of seven.
4. (informal) A statistical trend in a graph of survey data in which most of the results are flat and then the graph suddenly peaks in a steep near-vertical direction.
   • One of the pillars of the case for man-made global warming is a graph nicknamed the hockey stick. It's a reconstruction of temperatures over the past 1,000 years based on records captured in tree rings, corals and other markers. The stick's shaft shows temperatures oscillating slightly over the...2005 February 14, Antonio Regalado, “In Climate Debate, The 'Hockey Stick' Leads to a Face-Off”, in Wall Street Journal, →ISSN
   • They made it the focus of their attacks, hoping that by demolishing the hockey stick graph they would destroy the credibility of climate scientists and the notion of global warming as a phenomenon caused by human activity.2006 March 15, Fred Pearce, “Climate: The great hockey stick debate”, in New Scientist