Hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey !!!
I’m not sure I have anything to add to this thread other than to say that hockey is infinitely better than bowling. I confess I have watched bowling because I am generally a sports fiend and will watch just about anything that shows up on ESPN or ESPN 2. Speaking only for myself, bowling on TV is sometimes a good opportunity to make dollar bets, as it’s easy to bet on the upcoming frame and still have time to go to the kitchen and make more cocktails and fix more sandwiches and be back in time for the outcome of said bet. Really, the biggest problem with hockey is that it’s often difficult to wait until the period is over to refresh one’s cocktails, but that can be solved with the strategic placement of one’s home bar.
To give some credit to bowling, it is a sport that is relatively easy for Americans to participate in. Growing up in Buffalo, we played hockey as kids on actual ice in our actual backyard, but I realize that for most Americans, that is not an option. I believe people have a greater inclination to follow sports that they themselves play as adults, and even more importantly, played as children. I know most NHL teams have area programs designed to encourage children to play hockey, but I think overall, the sport (both professionals and fans) needs to do more to expose kids to hockey, especially since the cost of playing pee wee hockey is much greater than many other little league sports.
One neat thing about hockey is that when I even read the word “hockey,” I can smell the ice. Now who would want to smell a bowling alley? It smells like feet. Ugh.
Look, if you want a game of speed, collisions, and non-stop action, watch lacrosse. If you want a game of slightly less speed, collisions, and teams that score more than twice in an hour, watch football.
Bowling? Why on earth would you watch bowling? I think hockey is mostly a waste of time, but I still watch (and enjoy) the Stanley Cup finals–on the basis that they are the finals of a major-league sport. Bowling? WHaaAA???
Ummmm, have you seen a baseball game recently? Every fight in baseball is on ESPN, because they are all bench clearing brawls. And there only a few each season. And, for all intents and puposes, most of them aren’t fights. They are wrestling matches. No punches landed.
Every seen a hocky game without a fight? I saw a minor league game with 5 fights. The ref’s didn’t break them up till they both were on the ground, and never ejected any of the combatants. And hockey fights(at least the ones I’ve seen) would make boxers proud.
BTW, theres a cool punk rock complilation tape, with all the songs about hockey. I’ll get the name of it tommorow.
Frankly, I think that hockey would be endlessly more entertaining to watch if players had to actually tackle eachother rather than just checking. You’re watching some moment of sublime skill and grace and then BAM! he’s on the floor. Then I change the channel.
(And what’s all this crap about how many times a team scores? Who gives a fuck? If a score is stupidly easy to make, then how can you possibly get excited when they do so? What matters is the number of moments of excitement in a game, regardless of whether or not the scoreboard ticks over again when they happen.)
I liked hockey better when it was a niche sport. It may not have had a bunch of fans but the fans they had were passionate. Growing up in Detroit, I was priviledged to get to watch Hockey Night in Canada every saturday night. I still make it a habit to “see what Don Cherry has to say this week”. I believe we now have more teams south of the mason dixon line than we do in Canada. Gary Bettman has tried to make the NHL into the NBA but without the TV ratings, that won’t happen.
As for fighting, it’s a necessary evil. Even Wayne Gretzky has come around. Because these guys have sticks in their hands and wear razor blades on their feet during a contact sport, they need an avenue to get their aggression out without hurting anybody. Because they are on skates, wear helmets, and have pads on, they don’t get hurt while fighting. If you ban fighting, then you will see an increase in injuries, that’s a fact. Instead of going at it man to man, they will start to use their stick and do all this behind the scene stuff that will really get someone hurt. Everyone knows who the fighters are. Let them fight, let the skill players play.
kabbes, respect you as I do, by fuck are you wrong on this. Let me assure you that breaking up the wing to intercept a pass from your D, dodging around a defenders check, dummying past another than lining up a shot at a small goal guarded by a tender with an awfully wide padded area, all at high speed, is far from fucking easy. There’s also the sheer amount of time it takes in practice and games before you learn how your team plays, just so you have a snowballs chance in hell of fluid passing and good plays. Trust me, it’s not stupidly easy.
Sorry, but that’s just wrong. I’ve played a lot of high aggression sports - hockey, football (Aussie and american) and rugby. You can’t excuse the way that fighting is encouraged in hockey by saying it’s inevitable. Hell, imagine the aggression you build up during a football game - now imagine what would happen if in just about every match a serious fight broke out and the officials just let it go on till one person was cold. Even at the amateur level I play at, I’m sick of people trying to work out their deeper issues on the ice - if they’re just turning up to fight, let them box.
Uh… I don’t think so sport. If you want to play the “I played the game” routine then ask every guy in the NHL what their opinion is on the topic. Wayne Gretzky, one of the biggest pacifists in the game’s history, also arguably the most skilled, has said that fighting is good for the game. Their opinion gets a hell of a lot more respect than your amateur ass. In the NFL guys can let their aggression out by tackling hard and hard blocking. They also don’t have weapons in their hands. It’s a part of the game and should be a part of the game. If they ban fighting, they will lose far more fans than they would gain.
If you think fighting is hurting the spread of the game’s popularity, you are fucked in the head and don’t really know what you are talking about. Go watch figure skating.
It’s alright Gary - you can go on respecting me. I wasn’t talking about hockey*. I was talking about things like basketball that have scores of the order of 16343-23595. But more to the point, I was responding to the number of people that have said negative things about hockey just because they don’t perceive that there are enough goals. That is bullshit.
And personally I prefer to play in-line hockey. With no stupid checking.
pan
*incidentally, I think that hockey probably has the perfect number of goals. Few enough for each one to be exciting but enough so that attention doesn’t wane.
I like bowling, and would watch it if it ever came on much. It only comes on once or twice a week so guess what, of course more people are gonna watch then if they wanna watch some bowling. Hockey is on a lot more than once or twice a week so I can see how the ratings are higher for bowling. Hell it wouldn’t suprise me if Billiards got better ratings. Personally I’d like some Duckpin bowling on TV.
Ah, yes. Apologist Argument #2. I was wondering when it would come up.
It’s nonsense. Football’s a tremendously violent sport; they don’t allow fighting in football. Baseball at the turn of the century had a fight in every game - hell, players would punch out umpires from time to time - and people said “Well, they need an avenue for their aggression.” They got rid of fighting in baseball, though. Basketball’s a fast, violent sport; they don’t allow fighting in basketball. Why is it that the athletes in football, basketball, soccer, baseball, rugby, and a hundred other sports can get along without officially sanctioned fighting, but hockey players can’t? I was under the impression that PLAYING SPORTS was an outlet for aggression; now we have so much aggression we have to play the sport and beat each other up, too?
This “They need to let out their aggression” stuff is a load of crap. Logically, then, we need to allow fighting in every sport. Let’s have tennis players whomp each other with their racquets. There’s fighting in hockey because it’s allowed. No other reason.
I’m sure that will come as quite a surprise to Nick Kypreos, whose career was ended by a fight.
Because it sure doesn’t happen now, right? :rolleyes: High sticking injuries have been a part of hockey since Maurice Richard was in elementary school. Gordie Howe was famous for his ability to clip a guy in the fae without the ref seeing. That was 45 years ago, with no helmets and lots of fighting, so what the heck makes you think fighting reduces stickwork?
Here’s an idea; ban fighting, and then start handing out 25-game suspensions to anyone who uses a high stick. Make players wear full shields. Watch injuries go down. Watch the quality of play go up.
Hey, I know I’m a voice in the wilderness; people who love hockey are so blind to the fight that fighting makes the NHL a bush league that they can’t see the fact that fighting could be done away with in two weeks. The vast majority of hockey fans are convinced of the Don Cherry party line that fighting is necessary, never hurts anyone, and if you get rid of it the NHL will have 50 beheadings a week. They’re all wrong. It’s a SPORT. We make the rules. The nature of the game can be changed at will.
I agree. Let them fight… in local pickup leagues where they belong.
Lemme get this straight. Anyone who thinks “fighting is hurting the spread of the game’s popularity, you are fucked in the head and don’t really know what you are talking about.”
Oh right, like I’m the only person who thinks this. Tell you what, I just did a 30 second search in google on NHL and violence, and here’s a few links:From Sports Illustrated
They should have just shut the sport down after the “Miracle on Ice”. Everything since has been denoument.
Actually I enjoy hockey, especially live, but I think the NHL suffers from 3 major impediments to mass appeal:
[ul]
[li]Fighting. It’s bush league. It’s thuggish. It will forever relegate hockey to the fringe of popularity in America. I watched the Rangers-Caps Friday night, and teh level of violence disgusted me. “Enforcers” who lack any skill for the game and have no purpose on the ice save to physically damage the opposition do not make the game more exciting, more fun, more entertaining, or more involving. They just make it bloodier.[/li]
The argumnet that all players would turn into armed, vicious maniacs without the outlet of fighting makes no sense. It isn’t the skilled players who are dropping their gloves with regularity. And if the thugs weren’t on ice, then the skilled players would have less to be frustrated/aggravated/aggressive about, n’est ce pas?.
[li]Playoffs. More than half of the teams in teh post-season is a joke. The NBA has suffered from the same problem–it makes regular season games less meaningful. Having more teams involved in playoff races is a good thing., to a point. That point lies somewhere before giving the median team a playoff spot. It is the very definition of rewarding mediocrity.[/li][li]Points for losing.[/li]NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! Bad! Wrong! Look, if you want to give points for a tie, then stop the game and call it a tie. If you want to play overtime, play the damn overtime. But do not reward a team for losing late in the game instead of early in the game. They lost! No soup for them!
[/ul]
I don’t get watching bowling, though. Bowling, golf, pool–great games to play but watching them on TV ranks only slightly above Ab Scruincher[sup]tm[/sup] infomercials on the “Get a life you pathetic couch potato” scale.
First, bowling. Bowling is not the most watched sport - it is the most participated-in sport (pardon my syntax). The reason is that anybody can bowl - how many over 40 fat guys can play hockey??? Few, and they’re almost all mistakenly put in goal.
Next, hockey. A great sport - get rid of the fighting and it would be perfect - what a waste of time watching these losers duke it out for no good reason - worse than the last 2 minutes of pro basketball, IMHO. And that’s going some - even in close games, I turn off the last two minutes of pro basketball - it’s just too agonizing.
So tell me why is it that when I’m at a game and there’s a fight, there’s sudden excitement in the arena and that’s usually all people talk about after the game? I’d rather listen to what people who play the game and go to the games think than what some podunk in Alabama thinks about it.
According to your fucked up logic we should ban fastballs in baseball because Kirby Puckett ended his HOF career because he took one in the eye. More people have died from baseballs than have from fighting in a hockey game.
In College Hockey when they mandated the face masks, high sticking and boarding calls increased and the game has gotten rougher.
The goons are there to protect the stars. If someone tries to take them out with some dirty stickwork, you’re going to see them get flattened by the team goon. As for dangerous, I’d rather take a fist to the jaw than a stick to the back of my head any day. The fist may leave a bruise, it may break a bone, but a well-placed stick can end a career.
And, believe it or not, there is an honor code among the NHL’s fighters (these, of course, do not apply to anyone who goes after a star player):
Fighting is mutual - Rarely do you see a player drop the gloves without a lot of jawing before hand. Fights are almost always by invitation.
True goons don’t go after star players - While you might see a schmuck like Darius Kasparitis (a king of dirty stickwork, but a crappy and reluctant fighter) or Claude Lemieux try to high stick a guy like Jagr, you won’t see it from players like Stu Grimson or Tie Domi.
Goons defend the stars. In edmenton, if someone laid Gretzky with a dirty hit, he’d get his ass kicked by Semenko.
Fighting is far less dangerous than you think. There isn’t hte danger in a hockey fight that exists in other sports. For one, you have all the padding and helmets. Two, you are on skates so it’s harder to get your balance. How many times have you seen 2 guys just holding each other’s sweater, knowing the second they try to punch him, he’s going to be on his back getting pummelled.
If you don’t like it, then please don’t watch it. It’s part of the game and should be part of the game. Fighting has been reduced in the last 8 or 9 years and it’s still behind the XFL in ratings. Some people just won’t get it. Fighting is not the problem.
Apparently because you go to games with a bunch of violence-loving troglodytes. The fact that fights are “all people talk about” after the game simply demonstrates that it does detract from the game itself. I prefer sporting events that inspire me to talk about the contest, not the sideshow.
Then you should stop whining that podunks in Alabama don’t appreciate the sublime beauty of the the brutality you celebrate.
Well, this thread was begun with a rant about the fact that people who don’t like it aren’t watching it. Hey, bullfighting has it’s afficianados, too, but it’s not going to catch on as a television powerhouse in America. Like I said, I like hockey, but the last minute of the Rangers-Caps game was an unwatchable travesty. I would rather have sat through 10 minutes of hack-a-Shaq, including the red brick freethrows.
Fine, if people would rather watch a bunch of 300 pound convicts in 5 second bursts, then so be it. I guess hockey is not meant for everyone but don’t take fighting out of it. It’s part of the game and should be. Wayne Gretzkey "“But there’s no question that by allowing certain guys to fight, you eliminate a lot of the unnecessary stick work.” "
Here’s an article, where I got the quote above, about what hockey can do to improve itself. Granted it’s from Maxim, but it talks to guys within the game. On Thin Ice
I didn’t know I was a podunk from Alabama. I’m a red-blooded Canadian boy, born and raised on ice.
Hockey participation in Canada is declining for young boys. That’s a fact. Hockey’s popularity is simply not in healthy shape right now, and the state of the NHL and the violence it breeds is part of the reason. Citing the fact that people at the game were blabbing about the fight means nothing, since people who take the time to go to the games obviously like it. The OP concerned a rant about people who DON’T LIKE IT and who, one can presume, are not going to the games.
No baseball player in any major professional league I have ever heard of has ever died from being hit in the head by a pitch since they introduced batting helmets. See, they had a problem, so they fixed it. Baseball was an exceptionally violent sport in the 1890s and didn’t really excise it until well into the 1920s, and the excuses for it were all the same stupid bullshit excuses the Don Cherry lunkheads gives; it releases tension, it’s not dangerous, it’s just a part of the sport, blah blah blah. All lies.
But that is, once again, a completely irrelevant argument. Nobody is saying that fighting should be taken out of hockey because people are dying. I’m saying fighting should be taken out of hockey because it’s disgusting and its hurts the quality of play and the popularity of the sport.
So they say, and yet I have never seen a cite for it, and every introduction of safety equipment in hockey has resulted in a reduction in injuries. Since the introduction of face masks and shields in junior hockey in Canada, eye injuries have shrunk to a miniscule fraction of their previous levels. I work for the company that writes and tests to those standards, and our best guess is that face masks and shield have prevented up to two thousand partial and full blindings in junior hockey. That’s RESULTS.
If you want to cut down on the high sticking and boarding, frigging call the penalties. Change the rules. If your stick comes into contact with another player above his shoulders you get a five minutes major and a game misconduct, even if he’s not hurt. ANY contact, even a brush. Watch the sticks come down if you do that.
Well, shit, why don’t we just do away with rules? I do find it fascinating, though, that they don’t need goons in baseball, football, basketball, soccer, rugby, or volleyball.
Here’s the facts, jack; there have been goons in hockey since the Maple Leafs were called the St. Pats, and it has never stopped high sticking, which incidentally is no worse now than it ever was. I have an idea; accidental stick to the head, 5 game suspension. On purpose or causing injury, 20 game suspension. For additional offenses each offence adds another 2 games on the suspension. High sticks would disappear in five days.
Tie Domi is one of the dirtiest players in hockey and is a disgrace to his sport and his team. He’ll go after anyone and his stick is perpetually at eye level. I don’t know who you’re watching, but you might want to keep an eye on him. Scott Neidermayer didn’t.
This entire discussion is surreal. We’ve been told now that hockey players need to fight to release tension. But you’re saying only certain players fight, and it’s by invitation. Why don’t the other players need to fight? How is it any sort of “Tension release” if it’s so formalized and planned?
As far as people not watching hockey, it must depend on where you are. Right now I’m going to school in Duluth, MN, where last year they preempted Survivor to show the state high school hockey tournament. That remains one of my favorite things about this state.
Your logic doesn’t make sense. Fighting has gone down in the last 8 years. If what you say is true, then shouldn’t the popularity have gone up, instead of down? If fighting has gone down, and popularity has gone down, then how can you blame the fighting? During hockey’s peak fighting wasn’t curtailed.
I live 15 minutes from Canada and have quite a few Canadian friends and all they talk about is how Gary Bettman is turning hockey into a pussy sport.
The reason hockey is declining on Canada is because the canadian teams can’t keep up with the US dollar, not because of violence.
