10th April 2003, 8:29 PM
Heh. :)
The reason why I say hockey takes the most amount of skill to play is because it requires you to be excellent in all aspects...puckhandling, passing, shooting, backwards and forwards skating. In football, kickers kick and do nothing else. Runningbacks run, blockers block etc. You only have to be good at one aspect. In soccer, you have to be good at all aspects, too, but shooting a hockey puck and learning how to take and give a body check is much, much harder than kicking a soccer ball and running fast. And in soccer (I know this because of my past experiences, good ones) you can stand still for a long amount of time. You maybe do 5 sprints a game, and can basically rest the rest of the time. That's not to say I don't like soccer. It's my second favourite sport.
Also, like Laser Link said, the reason why the Stanley Cup is the hardest championship to win in all sports is because everything is stepped up by ten times. Going out, skating for a minute, getting knocked around everytime you get the puck, stopping and starting at least 10 times a shift, turning etc. is very physically demanding (trust me...). 20 minutes of ice time in pro hockey is much more hard on you than 90 minutes of pro soccer.
Just for facts sake, a comparision between Canadian and American hockey: I live in a town of about 2500. Last year (and the year before) we played the best players out of the entire state of Utah...vs. the best players out of our tiny town of 2500, we beat them two years but about 5 goals each time.
The reason why I say hockey takes the most amount of skill to play is because it requires you to be excellent in all aspects...puckhandling, passing, shooting, backwards and forwards skating. In football, kickers kick and do nothing else. Runningbacks run, blockers block etc. You only have to be good at one aspect. In soccer, you have to be good at all aspects, too, but shooting a hockey puck and learning how to take and give a body check is much, much harder than kicking a soccer ball and running fast. And in soccer (I know this because of my past experiences, good ones) you can stand still for a long amount of time. You maybe do 5 sprints a game, and can basically rest the rest of the time. That's not to say I don't like soccer. It's my second favourite sport.
Also, like Laser Link said, the reason why the Stanley Cup is the hardest championship to win in all sports is because everything is stepped up by ten times. Going out, skating for a minute, getting knocked around everytime you get the puck, stopping and starting at least 10 times a shift, turning etc. is very physically demanding (trust me...). 20 minutes of ice time in pro hockey is much more hard on you than 90 minutes of pro soccer.
Just for facts sake, a comparision between Canadian and American hockey: I live in a town of about 2500. Last year (and the year before) we played the best players out of the entire state of Utah...vs. the best players out of our tiny town of 2500, we beat them two years but about 5 goals each time.