No snark intended by this topic, and I’m not looking to make an argument for what’s the best sport to watch. I’m generally curious what makes these kind of sports interesting, especially since I’m in the middle of Blackhawks land. While I get excited whenever a goal is scored, most the action seems irrelevant to me.
For example, I enjoy football and baseball. Part of the reason why I like them is that there’s a fairly direct relation between the individual actions and the chance to score. In football, every time the offense moves the ball downfield, it increases the chance to score. Every time the defense makes a stop, it decreases that chance. In baseball, hits are good for offense, strikes and outs are good for the defense.
In comparison, in the recent Blackhawks game, Chicago had 35 shots on goal vs. Detroit’s 27. Chicago won 29 faceoffs versus Detroit’s 32. But with a final score of 2-1, that doesn’t really seem to matter. So what is exciting to watch?
This has been done a lot, if you don’t like them there is nothing anyone can say to change that.
What you may not appreciate about a sport like soccer is that because it is a low-scoring game then every chance or half-chance becomes immensely significant and exciting because a goal scored carries a weight that a basket or touchdown never does.
Hockey appeals to me aurally. The sound of skates on the ice. The puck thwunk. The shouts. And I love how fast it is, back and forth, back and forth. And I like how the men look, the uniforms, the ice skating…
Soccer is just a much bigger, slower version of hockey. I love the strategy. It’s ten people working together, and big plays often involve two or three players with intricate passes, and technically proficient footwork and tactics. It’s like a big chess game, or war. The grass, the sweats, the shorts.
Both those things are basically sensory, so if they’re not grabbing you, maybe it’s just a different brain thing?
In hockey every time you carry the puck across the offensive blue line you have a chance to score. Shots on goal are good for the offense, blocked shots and takeaways are good for the defense. Certainly there are football and baseball games in which the teams have almost the same yardage or the same number of hits, and the one with a little less wins a close game.
Hockey and soccer (and basketball which you didn’t mention) are in some sense more natural games – that is the basic idea is simple – put the ball or puck into a certain area more times than your opponent. A novice can watch any of those games and pretty well get the idea of what’s happening. Baseball and football are in a sense much more complicated games.
Pretty much. Plus, unlike football or baseball, no one “has the ball” or “is up at bat”. Anything can happen. It’s constant back and forth. It’s pure action. The low scoring is because it’s more challenging. Remember – it’s not just the shots on goal – you have to get past the goalie as well, and some goalies are awesome to watch*. .And while many people think it’s barbaric, I love a good hockey fight.
I like football, although only when the Steelers are playing. And one thing to keep in mind is that football isn’t necessarily higher scoring – it’s just that touch downs count for more that just one point. Technically game that’s 21-14 would be say, 3-2 in hockey, (if you forget the field goal).
I loathe soccer and basketball, though. I’m not much of baseball fan.
*Love him or hate him, but when he’s in form, I LOVE watching Marc-Andre Fleury. That guy is like Gumby. He must be able to turn his bones into liquid or something.
There is no appeal. At least not since the late 1970s when the NHL was sold to the Ice Capades. Before that, hockey was a wonderfully violent sport, played by toothless wonders.
Actually I’d say there is more violence in the sport today. In the old days there were more mass fights and bench-clearing brawls, but I believe today there is more dirty play and the puck moves much faster and is off the ice more leading to more potential injuries. Can you imagine how many injuries there wold be now if players did not wear helmets and in many cases visors? In the early days goalies didn’t even wear masks.
For me, soccer is appealing because it’s constant action and it cycles quickly. And the commercials are only every 45 minutes. The attack is constantly trying to build in 10-20 second spurts, and anything could happen at any time. An unexpected long ball, a quick strike on a counter, a defender caught ball-watching, etc. I think it’s kind of paradoxical in that to enjoy watching it you have to first start watching maybe without that enjoyment so that you can see what’s happening or trying to happen with various passes and it stops seeming like aimless pinging back and forth. It took me a couple years to get to that point but now I love it.
That’s not to say I love all soccer. Bad soccer is not fun to watch. Constant fouls and diving, a team that really does suck at strategy and is just kind of hoofing it around on a prayer, a team that can’t pass to save its life and keeps losing possession, etc. That’s not any fun. But good soccer is wonderful.
Can’t really help you with hockey. I don’t hate it, but it hasn’t grabbed me yet. I think if I put more time into watching it I’d enjoy it for the same reason I enjoy soccer, but right now I haven’t quite learned how to anticipate when I’m watching and I’m constantly losing the puck.
You have answered your own question. It isn’t exciting to you because you do not understand what you are watching.
And yet you say you like baseball (I love baseball.) But most plays in baseball do not result in anything. Most pitches result in neither a hit nor an out; it’s just one pitch after another slapping int the catcher’s mitt, or being fouled off. Most baserunners do not score. Most at bats are uneventful. To someone who - like you with hockey - doesn’t understand what is happening, that would be very boring. But to you or I, who DO understand baseball, it’s quite interesting, because each pitch changes the nature of the battle between the pitcher and the batter. What appears to be just another pitch to the uneducated observer is, to you and I, an extremely meaningful act. Whether the 1-1 pitch is a strike or a ball is quite literally the difference between the batter from that point on hitting like George Brett or hitting like a pitcher (seriously.) So it means something to me, where it would not mean something to a person uneducated about baseball.
So it is with hockey. I can watch five minutes of a hockey game with you blocking the score graphic at the bottom, and I bet I (and most Canadians) can guess with surprisingly accuracy who’s winning. As a play develops in the offensive zone, I see players doing things that increase or decrease the likelihood of a goal being scored; to me is is EXACTLY the same as watching a baseball team get two men on base with nobody out, which heightens the likelihood of a run being scored, or have the first two men pop out, which greatly decreases it. Seeing a team beseiged in their defensive zone is like watching a baseball team with a struggling starting pitcher who obviously doesn’t have his best stuff. Watching a player who is consistently failing to make the correct outlet pass is like watching a relief pitcher who is consistently failing to hit the target the catcher is presenting, and the anticipation is much the same.
Seriously, the problem is simply that you don’t know what you are watching. Keep watching it and eventually you will.
There are two aspects in any sport: the athleticism and the strategy.
Low scoring games put a strong emphasis on a balanced strategy, since every point is a potential match decider, the tragedy of getting caught with your guard down is as big as the ecstasy of scoring.
In any case, being able to “read” the strategical subtleties of any sport is what will make you enjoy it more, regardless of how high are the chances of scoring. It’s a bit like learning a completely new language-- many people find it hard, and it may not be really worth the effort, so don’t worry about it.
… or think about it like this: imagine American Football, but only touchdowns count as points, and you get a point per touchdown. That would give you pretty much Hockey scores while being sort of the same exact game.
I’m a huge hockey fan, but I do not like soccer, despite the similarity of the games.
For me, the intense pace of hockey, and the tremendous skill required is what makes it for me. There is a crazy fast pace, a skater needs to carry a tiny puck on the end of a stick, pass and skate through a congested rink, all while on skates and getting smashed into boards and such. It’s exhilarating. I didn’t become a hockey fan until I went to college, where hockey was king. I went to my first live game, just feet from the glass, and was hooked.
Since then, I not only love the skill and physical play, but its truly the ultimate team sport. You HAVE to pass and work together as a unit to get anything done, and the speed at which that happens is awesome. I’ve also learned to truly appreciate strategy, the set plays, positioning, etc, which has all made it more entertaining.
Now soccer: it’s like hockey, but with taking away all the speed, hitting, scoring chances and excitement. I’ve tried many times to get into it, but it bores the snot out of me.
I’m well aware of that. Like I said, I’m not trying to criticize hockey or anything. Is there a good beginner’s guide to strategy out there. I think part of the problem is that it’s so fast with no breaks that there no time to sit and go “okay, the reason why they did that was to…”
I have no problem with the scoring. I can certainly appreciate a great football play that doesn’t result in a score. In fact, I’m not a huge fan of basketball because it’s so high scoring. Whenever people start cheering for a basket in the beginning of the first quarter, all I can think is “you know there’s gonna be 40 more of those right?”
If you think you’d like hockey, but just aren’t into it because you don’t ‘get’ it, then I’d just suggest going to several live games. You live in Chicago, so obviously the Blackhawks are there, but that could get expensive. Maybe try going to several Chicago Wolves games, and try and get close. Try and follow who does what with the puck.
As far as strategy, I don’t think it’s imperative to know too much in intricate detail, but getting a grasp of general strategy is something that will come naturally after watching for a while.
The key things to understand are probably
Understand the blue lines - you may already be familiar with this, but understanding the rules that concern the blue lines and how they relate to the offensive/defensive zone is somewhat key (so, understanding that offsides happens when a player from the offensive team precedes the puck into the offensive zone, and that if the puck comes out of the zone, all players from the attacking team must leave the offensive zone prior to the puck coming back in. This can sometimes be ‘delayed’ if a team dumps the puck back in, as long as a person from the attacking team doesn’t pursue or touch the puck before leaving and reentering the zone.)
Understand the rules about the goalie and how it relates to the goal line and the crease. (For instance, in the NHL, the goalie can handle the puck anywhere except the areas behind the goal line in the corners…the area he can touch the puck is in front of the goal line, and in the trapezoid behind the net.)
Get a grasp on a few of the major strategies, such as the umbrella setup on a power play, and dumping and chasing in the offensive zone. These don’t take too long to understand, and they are easy to recognize on the ice, so you can sort of anticipate how the puck will be passed and the offense operated.
That’ll give you a good start.
Of course, if you simply feel that you would have no interest regardless, then there’s no reason to force yourself to enjoy it. Hockey and Football are my two favorite sports (by far), but I couldn’t care less about basketball. I enjoyed it somewhat at one point, but I’m now intensely bored watching games, aside from some of the NCAA Tournament. I despise the NBA. I have no desire, so I’m not going to force myself to enjoy it. No reason for everyone to like all sports, but if you feel like you could really love hockey and soccer, but don’t know enough about them to enjoy them now, then start with the above for hockey.
Then I guess I didn’t understand your post. Reading it again, you said that what you enjoy is that every action increases the chances of scoring… that’s exactly what happens in every other sport, isn’t it?
The best way to try to see the appeal in a sport is to watch it, preferably live, with someone knowledgeable. If that doesn’t work, the sport is probably not for you.
Thanks. This is exactly the kind of info I was looking for. I doubt I’ll ever be a huge hockey fan or anything, but considering it’s on in every bar, I’d like to know what’s going on. Then again, I didn’t really like football until a few years ago, so who knows.
Probably wasn’t clear there. What I mean is there’s a direct observable chance that decreases or increases. A team at the X yardline on the nth down with y yards to go has a z% chance of scoring. A team with x outs, y strikes, and z players on base has a n% chance of scoring a run. With hockey, I don’t get that sense. The puck can change possession hundreds of times without seeming to change who has a better chance of winning. But of course, I could be wrong.
Televised coverage necessarily focuses on the puck - and has to be rather close-in because the puck is small. But the positions and actions of players who don’t have the puck are extremely important (because passing & teamwork are necessary for most scoring opportunities). So you need a wider field of view than a television screen can provide.
I know very little about hockey. Earlier this year, I was invited to a Boston College vs University of New Hampshire game. I loved it. Live hockey is really fantastic to watch.
I do understand what you’re going for here, and while I grew up with hockey (and so could, like RickJay, pretty likely tell you who was winning without knowing the score) it was much harder for me to pick up on this in soccer.
One thing you might try to do is figure out what strategy the team is using to score (or to prevent the other team for scoring) and figure out whether or not it seems to be working.
If a soccer team is attempt to free wingers running down the flanks and then cross in to a big center forward for a header, watch if the defensive backs are able to keep up with the winger on his run and whether the central defenders are having a tough time keeping the forward from getting clean headers.
Alternatively, if a defense in soccer is trying to hold a high line (meaning line up their defenders far away from their goal and keep the attacking players in an offside position) see if the offense is having success “breaking the trap” and getting forwards behind the defense.
In both cases, you can tell whether repeated applications of that strategy seem likely to work or not, which can tell you a rough probability that a side is going to score. No guarantee, of course, and soccer is known for goals “against the run of play”, but it might help you get a feel for the purpose of it all.
And one thing to keep in mind is that football isn’t necessarily higher scoring – it’s just that touch downs count for more that just one point. Technically game that’s 21-14 would be say, 3-2 in hockey, (if you forget the field goal).