OK, That does it. Non-hockey-fans, step forward to receive your high stick

The BBQ Pit
21

Hockey?

You wuss. Try playing hurling. fifteen people on eact team with more issues than time magazine given a beating stick, a small leather ball, and not an ounce of padding or protection and very little teeth, sent out onto a freezing cold pitch in the middle of winter where they thump 90 shades of bejaysus out of each other for 60 minutes, no sin bins, no time outs, a brief halftime where your scolded for not tackling hard enough, and the creme de la creme, its completely ameteur. These people do it for the love of the game.
And thats just the Ladies teams.

The men play for longer.

22

Hmmmm, now THAT sounds like some good television…. (the ladies game that is) sounds interesting especially the teeth part….

Respectfully interested
The Unbeliever

23

“Hockey is a peculiar sport for most Americans. It’s very difficult to pick up and play; it has 4 periods; it’s on ice; many of the players are Canadian or European.”

And the number of the periods shall be three, no more… no less. You shall not go to four unless there’s a tie and you shall not play two. Nor will you play to five unless it’s the playoffs.

What ever happened to that bozo who suggested that we change the game to four periods anyways? Perhaps his body is frozen under a sheet of ice somewhere or maybe he’s swapping stories with Hoffa.

For the most part, Canadians are the only guys tough enough to play this sport. Sure there are some exceptions but… :slight_smile:

I guess it comes down to where you’re from. Right now it’s well beyond freezing here and the other day they were starting to put the ice in at our local outdoor rink. it makes winter bearable when you can lace them up and play a little shinny with your mates.

After playing and watching hockey for a lifetime most other sports pale in comparison for sheer excitement.

And in the immortal words of the prophet Red Green…

“Keep your stick on the ice”.

24

well, some of the women (and a few of the men), have taken to wearing helmets to protect their face, and helmets are mandatory at under age level.

The game has ball speeds that average in the 70’s or 80’s mph, but has been recorded at moving up to 124mph.
Its a fast game, and one that has to be seen live to be fully apreciated.

25

Of course you realize that we’re getting bowling rants from the country that gave us curling.

A rock and a broom. Shuffleboard for the anal-retentive?

26

Are you stoned? Detroit had as many home grown talents during 97-98 as Colorado did. I don’t recall any big sell off or one year wonder like the Marlins. We developed Yzerman, Lidstrom, Fedorov, Konstantinov, McCarty, Osgood, Kozlov(considerably more than “SOME”, traded for Vernon and Shanahan, acquired Draper at a waiver draft, and took Murphy when Toronto was giving him away.

Colorado isn’t so blameless when they got Blake and Borque, then signed Sakic, Roy, and Blake to huge contracts. They are just as guilty as Detroit.

27

Really? Who here is Scottish?

28

Canadian checking in.

I used to love hockey and hate basketball. Now I love basketball and I’m starting to dislike hockey, although I still enjoy hockey… but it’s on a downward slope.

I used to think exactly as Milossarian does, so why have I changed my mind? Good question. I think it boils down to four things.

  1. After long and careful consideration I’ve decided that fighting in hockey is just colossally stupid, and amounts to being just short of a criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated assault. I’m sick of it, I’m sick of seeing it, and I’m sick of the way the NHL promotes it. The level of outright pointless violence in the NHL exceeds that of the NFL, CFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball combined. If they banned fighting in hockey and cracked down on the violence the calibre of play and entertainment value would be increased a hundredfold. There’s absolutely no need for the fighting and the violence, and

  2. It leads to the NHL becoming insanely boring over the last fifteen years. Hockey in the 1980’s was terrific - it was fast and creative and wonderful. Watching the Oilers play was like watching dancers perform Swan Lake. The 1987 Canada Cup was possibly the finest athletic contest in human history, and every game ended 6-5 - there was passing, skating, stickhandling, big hits, great shooting, everything. They were all over the ice slamming into each other and making big shots and doing amazing things. Now it’s just atrocious. There’s no scoring, no creativity, no grace, no art; it’s a clutch-and-grab fest and the league doesn’t want to do anything about it.

  3. The NBA really is cool once you start to watch it, ESPECIALLY if you go to see a game, and unlike the NHL they don’t have league-sanctioned fisticuffs every other period. Furthermore, the presentation of the sport is just outstanding; it’s got to be the most crisply presented major sport there is. You can pretty much count on an NBA game to last about 2 hours and 20 minutes, which you sure as hell can’t say about baseball or football.

  4. Even if I didn’t want to watch the NHL, junior and instructional leagues in Canada have become something of a national disgrace, overpoliticized hotboxes of parents living vicariously through their child gladiators. The calibre of player coming out of our system has dropped through the floor as teams pump out a succession of glorified goons to win clutch-and-grab games. Teams play endless numbers of games and hardly ever practice, reducing the time they can work on skills, all in the interest of winning meaningless local titles, and spawning an institutional dislike of the sort of original, fast, positional hockey that’s actually fun to watch. As near as I can see the only thing Canadian kids are taught now is to dump and chase and beat each other up; if they try to stickhandle or carry the puck or do anything even remotely skill-based or creative they’re punished. It has actually now reached the point where many people in junior hockey honestly believe that a hockey player cannot be taught how to play offense - I’ve had people tell me that. “You’re born knowing how to score, it can’t be taught.” Zzzzzzz.

There’s a reason Canadian kids are playing less hockey; it’s not fun anymore. “We have to win at all costs and don’t you dare handle the puck for more than two seconds before you dump it in and hit someone” is not fun, not instructional, and not conducive to creating good hockey players. If I wanted to watch wrestling I’d watch wrestling; I don’t want to see wrestling when I watch hockey, but that’s what it’s becoming.

29

Seriously, this argument is useless. There are more fights in baseball now (especially bench clearing brawls). There are more fights in the NBA (if you can count that silly bitch slapping as fighting). The number of fights has gone down again and again in the NHL, yet it seems to be the one thing that people fixate on.

When was the last time somebody switched channels when there was a fight on?

30

I’m dissapointed- no one picked up my mistake- hockey has THREE periods, not 4, which is one of it’s peculiarities! :smiley:

31

Erhm, except for…

As I look hurriedly at my watch and notice I’ve only got two hours to get an awful lot done before hockey practice this evening.

32

All that said, RickJay, how on earth could people rather watch somebody else bowl than a professional hockey game?

And understand, that question is being asked by someone who highly enjoys bowling. I even brought my own ball, shoes, and wrist-straightener-thingee to the ChiDope 2000 Bowl-o-Rama.

Watching somebody else?

“What’s he going to do next, John?”

“Well, Pat, he’s going to knock down all of the pins. So is the other guy. And, once in a while, he won’t knock down all of the pins. So then he will knock the rest down on his next ball. And, once in a great while, he won’t knock down all of the pins, even on two rolls.”

Turn it off, please! I can’t stand the excitement!

33

Ah yes, the standard Apologist #1 argument. I trust you’re aware that was you said is a complete load of shit, right?

I would estimate that there are more fights in one week of NHL hockey than there were in the entire 2000-2001 NBA season and 2001 Major League Baseball season combined. Fights in the NBA and MLB (and the NFL, while we’re at it) are quite rare; I’ve watched hundreds of NBA games and I’ve seen two fights. Maybe three. And the participants were all suspended. The average major league baseball team has about one genuine bench clearing brawl a decade; honest-to-goodness fights betwene two guys might happen four or five times a year in the entire league. Furthermore, fights in the NBA/NFL/MLB/whatever are broken up as soon as they take place; fighting in hockey is allowed, and the goons fighting are encouraged to continue fighting until one or the other has lost. It’s disgusting.

NHL fights are down from 20 years ago. They’re still about, I would guess, 50 times more frequent than in all other major North American pro sports combined. So far this year the NHL - a little less than a third of the way into the regular season - has had more than 250 fights, which is more than NBA and MLB have had in the last five years.

And you’re damn straight people fixate on it. They fixate on it because it’s ridiculous. If the best thing you can say for the NHL and fighting is that they’ve cut fighting down to the point where they only get a fight every two games, where for every other sport it’s a fight every two months (at the most) your standards are screwed up. There’s no reason for it and it’s completely beyond the pale of good sportsmanship and common sense.

Milossarian: I can’t explain the bowling thing. Sorry.

34

As a late-comer to the world of hockey, I think I can help answer some of these questions.

First, the location of the teams. I am still amazed that there are hockey teams in San Jose, Anaheim, Atlanta, and other warm climates, but Wisconsin doesn’t have an NHL team, and Minnesota just got one back. Granted, those areas may have larger populations, but northern states would seem to have a larger hockey-watching population.

Second, hockey is a game that needs to be seen live to be appreciated. I know because I always had a dim view of hockey until I saw my first game. Even now–I have Friday night tickets to my school’s hockey games, and I watch the Saturday games on TV. There’s no comparison.

Third, (hi Opal) there’s not a lot of prep hockey (because it’s expensive and for insurance reasons), which cuts down on hooking <nudge, nudge, wink, wink> people in early.

Fourth, the season is too long. There is no way that a sport defined by cold weather (hello, they play on ice) should last through April. The number of games doesn’t help (no, I’m not much of a baseball fan and I hate pro basketball, so you can’t throw that in my face!)

Fifth, get some better mascots. I’m talking to you, expansion teams! I realize that there are a lot of sports team, but Wild, Blue Jackets, and Mighty Ducks, indeed!

Sixth, and this is just my HO, but I think that college hockey is more fun. Maybe it’s because I am in college and I go to games. College fans are some of the most fanatical, they come up with some of the most creative cheers, and they cut down on the fighting a bit, because these are “prospects.” I will add, I love to see blood bounce on ice!

35

My goal is to make each game more important (and thus more exciting) by reducing the number of games played during the regular season. If there are only 50 games in a season then each one is more important than when there are 80. The salary cap shouldn’t affect this.

That’s an excellent point, I guess we’re kind of stuck with 16 teams. I definitely enjoy the current playoff system but I think it’s ridiculous that more than half the league makes it into the playoffs.

36

US hockey fan checking in here.

There’s no accounting for taste in America. Need I remind anyone that even the mighty Monday Night Football is often clobbered in the ratings by gasp pro wrestling?

Personally I think baseball, football, and basketball are boring compared to hockey. But of course, “excitement” means different things to different people. I for one have been known to watch the occaisional golf match on TV, but only if Tiger Woods isn’t winning.

You know what? I don’t care where hockey ranks compared to other sports. Here’s my thoughts: I know lots and lots of people who are fans on some level of sports, football, basketball, baseball, etc. But of all the hockey fans I know, they are all pretty hardcore. Hockey may not have the most fans, but from what I’ve seen (and remember, YMMV) they are generally the most knowledgeable.

Being a hockey fan in the US can almost give you that “insider” feeling, like a cult-movie or indie band–no one else gets it but you and your friends so that makes it extra cool.

37

As much as I dislike him, I think I would enjoy watching Don Cherry provide commentary for a televised bowling match.

*What’s the matter bowlers these days. Ten, coun’t 'em. ten clubs, but no hits! Why back in my days, . . . *

38

They mentioned this article about bowling outdrawing hockey on ESPN tonight. They said that it was really not news. Bowling has always had good ratings because it has a large faithful set of fans. Hockey on the other hand has never done well.

39

Come to any Canadian household on any Saturday night from fall to early summer, and you’ll see a large, faithful set of fans (see: Hockey Night In Canada).

40

Well, coming from a huge hockey fan (I watch at least 6 games a week, and go to at least 9 or 10 games a year), you’re just watching the wrong type of bowling. Watch some candlepin instead of that insultingly easy sport the rest of the country calls bowling, and you’ll see some real talent.