Why Ice Hockey is the Tougher Sport
Ice hockey and football have seemingly been going head-to-head to secure a spot as the tougher sport. Many would say football, considering that it is a lot more known around the states than ice hockey is, but, even as a fan of both, I would have to disagree. I play ice hockey and I can definitely tell you that hockey is not as easy as it looks. I’m not saying football isn’t a hard sport to learn and to play, I just believe ice hockey is tougher to master and it requires much more skill, stamina, agility, flexibility, hand-eye coordination, and strength.
First, hockey players seem to be a whole lot tougher than football players. Paul Martin broke his leg during the regular season. He finished his shift and didn’t realize his leg was broken until he stood up for his next shift and felt the bone move in his leg. Nick Bonino also somehow played about 12 minutes on a broken tibia and attempted to continue playing. Ian Laperriere took a slap shot in the face and knocked out about 15 of his teeth, but he made it back for the third period. If a football player were to break a leg they would be laying there on the field till someone carried them off. Many football players can’t play for weeks because of toe turf, while hockey players have returned to games after taking 100 mph slap shots to the face. Ice hockey players are seen to have the ability to endure more and I believe they don’t give up as easy as football players.
“This week’s Big Question: What is the worst injury you’ve seen a guy play through?” (http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/18405505/nhl-big-question-worst-injury-seen-guy-play-through)
Ryan Johansen, C, Columbus Blue Jackets: “My ex-teammate taking 36 stitches, Matty Calvert. Taking 36 stitches in the head and he’s the type of guy, he would smile and say, ‘Hurry up, I want to get back out there right now.’ He’s a horse. He takes a lot of pride in it and that’s a role he’s come into and he’s an animal. Does that count?”
Jeff Petry, D, Montreal Canadiens: “Taylor Hall getting stepped on. No helmet, warmups, stepped on a puck and guy came around the corner trying to get over him and stepped right on his forehead and split him wide open. You see his face. You could see him put his hand up to his face and there’s no blood and then the next time he goes up, it’s coming and it was ugly. It was ugly.”
Chris Pronger: “Jason Smith in Edmonton broke the ball of his foot. It was broken and he tried to play on it. I’m like, ‘Dude, you can’t.’ And he was, ‘Eh.’ I can’t imagine how much that had to hurt. Just think of the ball of your foot. That’s a pressure point. You have to push there. Skating backwards, you’re pushing on that. Skating forwards, you’re pushing on that. I can’t imagine the pain he was in trying to skate through that.”
Kevin Shattenkirk, D, St. Louis Blues: “I played with Barret Jackman and he made his injuries seem so small and minuscule, where I think I would’ve been out three to four weeks. … He had something going on one year, might have been his last year with his elbow. I’m not sure if it was tendinitis or what, but he couldn’t straighten his elbow out past 45 degrees and all season he played through it. Every game you knew he was hurt, but he’d go out there and next thing you know, he’s using that same elbow to knock someone in the back of the head. He was the guy, to me, [who] was just a warrior. He could play through anything. He wouldn’t wear any of it on his face.”
Mike Green, D, Detroit Red Wings: “John Erskine played with, I don’t know if it was a fractured neck or something, herniated disk in his neck. He played with it for I don’t know how long, the guy could barely move his neck when he came to the rink. After a couple years going more into it, looking into it, he ended up having surgery and didn’t play. At the time you don’t know, but at the same time playing through that is intense.”
Kevin Bieksa, D, Anaheim Ducks: “You want to hear broken bones and stuff like that, right? I think the thing is, a lot of people have microfractures in their feet and hands, and a lot of times it doesn’t show up right away on X-rays. I know I have. I know [Ryan Kesler] has. We’ve played through broken bones on our feet before. It doesn’t show up right away. After you’re in pain for a week or two, you realize this thing isn’t getting better, so you get a CAT scan. Sometimes it just doesn’t show up. Things like that are hard to play with.”
That’s only a few of the many NHL athletes that have played through their injuries. You hardly see football players continue to play after an injury, but in ice hockey, it’s pretty common.
Hockey is fast paced and, in my opinion, far more exciting than football. There is more non-stop action in hockey compared to football. The average amount of playing time per football game is 11 minutes, because the clock runs even before and after a player is tackled. Ice hockey is basically 60 whole minutes of play time. In the NHL, they stop only when there is a penalty, offside, icing, commercial break, or timeout. The NFL has stop about every 10 seconds or for every single play, which is kind of tedious. Why watch a game where it has to stop every 10 seconds when you can watch 60 whole minutes of action?
If you want to play hockey, you need to learn how to skate first. Learning that is like a whole level on its own. It takes years of practice to become even a decent skater and it takes even longer to master the use of stick and puck. On the other hand, football only requires running on turf. It is true that you have to run longer in football, but it takes more effort, energy, and stamina to skate. Hockey requires speed and balance, along with agility. Not everyone has what it takes to be a great hockey player. Ice hockey players also require much more training than football athletes.
Hockey is definitely more physical and strenuous than football. Ice hockey players take more hits than football players. The hits in hockey, according to ESPN Sports Science, are 17% harder than hits in football, despite the fact that football players are generally bigger. In addition, hockey comes with potential injuries that are lot nastier than ones in football. Of course, concussions are the worst in football, as well as in other contact sports, but in hockey you are likely to get hit by a puck. Pucks are basically rock solid, making it very painful and extremely fatal if it hits your head. Along with that, ice hockey players are always at the risk of getting cut by blades, which are basically knives at the bottom of their shoes. Falling on ice is also more damaging than falling on the turf.
NHL teams play more games per season than NFL players. In the NFL they play a total of 16 regular season games, one game every week. Compared to ice hockey, that is actually nothing. In the NHL, players play a total of 82 regular season games, usually every other day or every 2 days. This just shows that NHL players have much more endurance when it comes to playing back to back most nights and traveling most of the time to get to their games. All Star defensemen, Jay Bouwmeester just recently missed a game ending his 738 consecutive NHL game streak and Anaheim Ducks’ Andrew Cogliano has played more than 642 consecutive NHL games. This is extremely hard to achieve knowing that ice hockey has a high rate of extreme injuries. NHL players deserve a lot of credit as they spend most of their time in planes, buses, and on the ice than spending time with friends and family or doing anything else.
Hockey has something that the NFL wishes it could have: international appeal and competition. Hockey is popular in other countries with colder climates, and is even beginning to grow in warmer countries, thanks to artificial ice. There are international competitions for hockey such as the IIHF World Championship, World Juniors, and the Winter Olympics. Football does not have that same appeal that hockey has in other countries, besides Canada, which still loses out to hockey. Football is huge in the states, but if you were to look out of the country, it’s not as popular as ice hockey internationally.
Brendan Shanahan answers the question is hockey hard with, “I don’t know, you tell me. We need to have the strength and power of a football player, the stamina of a marathon runner, and the connect ration of a brain surgeon. But we need to put this all together while moving at high speeds on a slippery surface, while 5 other guys use clubs to try and kill us. Oh yeah, did I mention that this whole time we’re standing on blades 1/8 of an inch thick? Is hockey hard, I don’t know you tell me, next question.” I don’t think football requires all of that… Willie Colon, former Pittsburgh Steelers player, even states that ice hockey is tougher than football and with him being offensive lineman, I think he’d know a thing or two about toughness.
If hockey was more accessible in the states, then more people would play and it would most likely be much more popular than football. No other country enjoys football like Americans and that is just because of heritage, not because the sport is any better, but because ice hockey hasn’t really spread throughout the states as it has in other countries such as Canada, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belarus, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Ukraine, etc.
Overall, I believe ice hockey to be the tougher sport compared to football. Hockey requires skill, precision, stamina, agility, and balance, while football simply requires speed, strength, and a good memory (to memorize plays and whatnot).