Thursday, October 20, 2011

Interlude Thursday: Hockey.




Someone whom I thought was a friend and had forgiven me for being Canadian is at it again and trying to destroy something I love. Max over at Misanthropy Blog has attacked my beloved sport of hockey.

He says no one has scene a goal scored. 

I think you need to work on your observation skills. A puck doesn't fly that much faster than a really fast pitch from a pitcher in baseball. (or even the fucking ball in tennis) So if you can see a baseball fly through the strike zone then you can see a puck. For fucks sake it is a black object against a white background if you can't see it you need to stop spending your time whacking off to the backside view of an offensive line in football and get some visual reflexes.

I have seen goals scored, many times. Max mentions that a siren is used to announce a goal. This is correct, however it isn't an automatic siren it has a manual switch that a guy named "goal judge" has to flip whenever he "sees" a puck go into the net. So suck it Max and petition your TV stations to bring back the puck that glows on your TV set so your idiotic brain can follow it. (seriously up here in Canada we were laughing very heartily at the country that is our shorts for that)




The next point he attacked was "The fighting sucks" 

He mentions that fighting isn't allowed. Correct it isn't allowed, but it isn't really punished either. When Robby spit on the umpire in baseball he was fined and kicked out of some games. When Ron Artest beat the shit out of a fan again fined and suspended from some games. In hockey, you beat the living piss out of someone you get to go have a time out in the corner/penalty box to think about what you've done.

Max also mentioned that the actual fight itself sucks.

I have a sample fight for you.

I might add that they aren't holding on to each others jerseys to hold themselves up, no, they are holding onto each others jerseys so that they get better leverage to smash in the other persons face.

Now the fighting may not be as awesome as say boxing or a UFC match but it adds a little bit of excitement. plus when players can make sure that someone who plays dirty and the ref doesn't see it gets punched in the face they all tend to play a little more fair.

Next up was Speed doesn't matter


Speed is exciting. Hands down. That is why it isn't just southerners that are into motor sports. The statistics for formula one racing place more of the fans outside of the united states. (Europe mostly). In fact the only motor sport that is really popular in the states is surprisingly one of the slower ones, Nascar, kinda says a lot about your country's taste in sports.

NASCAR, slower than the other motor sports.
Baseball, America's past time. This has to be the slowest thing considered a sport besides golf.
Football, the play stops every fucking 5 seconds and you get another 30 second break/ play clock.

The more I think about it Americans love things that are slow. Another word for slow is Retarded. I'm not drawing any conclusions here but it might explain a few things.  (Politics, your sports, the fact you haven't fully embraced the scientific proof of evolution.)

I'm taking a moment to share this because I can.

Below is an image of a graph of percentages for the amount of people that believe in evolution by country. Before you say it I know Canada isn't on there but let me tell you we aren't as low as you guys.

Good Job Merica, you beat Turkey.
Ok back to hockey.

The Playoffs take to long


Develop an attention span. The reason why hockey playoffs take so long is because the players actually have to recover after every game so they can't play back to backs. Hockey also believes in proving superiority to be more than a one time thing, which is why it is a best of 7. If you can beat another team 4 out of seven times the odds are that you're the better team. We don't just hand out a trophy to the team that has the best day.

Max says we should have the playoffs be of the top 8 teams instead of 16 because they take too long. I'd agree except I've seen a team from the bottom end of the racket come back to win the cup. (It's all about money anyway, longer playoffs mean more ticket sales)

Tie breakers make no sense.


I don't get how a shoot out isn't related to the sport. It is a test of skill player against goal tender and it isn't a sudden death type thing either it is averaged out over 5 different players from each team. Whoever has the most goals by the end of it wins.

I don't even know how ties are decided in football. A coin, toss like how the first possession is decided? In hockey everything is based on skill even who controls the puck from the very beginning. The face off is a battle of reflexes to see which player can hit a puck dropped by the ref to his own player.

I should also say that during playoffs there are no tie breakers they just go into extra periods. The longest

game took 176 minutes and 30 seconds of game play. When a normal game is 60 minutes. I don't know if you know this but hockey is exhausting to play. You have to be pretty fucking fit.

I'm going to jump into a tangent here.

Hockey is a sport that requires it's players to be fit.

This is Ryan Kesler, he plays for The Vancouver Canucks
He is fucking ripped. "All" hockey players have to be.
Syracuse football. I'm not going to say all football players are fat but most of the players on the team are.


C.C. Sabathia after he said he lost 25 pounds. 

Ok back to Max's complaints about hockey. 

Racist hockey?... No I'm afraid you have that backwards. We aren't racist or bigots we just want the best players to play. Hockey has its mix of ethnicity.

PK Subban plays for Canada at the world level and the Montreal Canadians in the NHL.


Below is him hitting another player, this is a clean hit and it's fucking awesome.

He isn't just a thug either, he is a talented player. 

Here is another awesome player of color I respect. 
Ray Emery

I'm sorry there just isn't proof that hockey is racist.

I'm not going to say that hockey is perfect and doesn't have it's issues but it is entertaining. It requires a lot of skill and athleticism to play if you can't see it you're blind.

Later Days 
NtH

7 comments:

  1. I fucking love hockey. I don't like basketball or Nascar, and I'm sick to death of football even though I still kinda like it.

    Oh, and I'm American.

    Know what else I'm sick of? ESPN brainwashing all these idiots down here (like your "buddy" Max) into thinking that hockey sucks and football is the greatest sport ever. You who the real minority is? American hockey fans. There's probably more hockey fans here than in Canada, but as a % of our population it's maybe 2%.

    And when we actually identify ourselves as hockey fans, you rip us apart. Ask any fan of the Devils, Predators, Panthers, Blue Jackets, Coyotes... pretty much any non "traditional" team and they'll tell you just how much crap they get from Canadians. if I had a looney for every time a Canadian said/wrote "Americans don't care about hockey." I could buy the Oilers and move them to Houston. Hahahaha.

    We're here, Nth. We're just hiding behind the overgrown asses of MLB pitchers and NFL linemen.

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  2. @Arlequin: I know why Turkey is at the bottom by why the states?

    @Insomniac: I never give people crap about hockey, who they cheer for whatever. As for buying the oilers... umm after last season almost anyone could buy them.

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  3. NTH I guess the US is at the bottom for several reasons;

    a) Most other societies have seen some form of 'proof' of evolution at work. Different generations see their descendants get taller, smarter, fewer webbed toes etc. The US appears to be devolving/becoming more religious, depending where you sit on the whole Darwin thing.

    b) Some Americans tend to be brutally direct with anyone who offends their religious views. Maybe there are literally fewer people who dare to believe different. Seriously it's the only country in the world where people take you to court for teaching it ffs.

    c) It's genetic. The bulk of Europe's religious zealots(puritans et al.)fled to the US in its early days, hence the Salem Witch Trials there and the complete lack of them in Europe after they'd left. The descendants of these folk display the same characteristics and shared gene pool.

    Darwinism or Chosen people, take your pick... let's face it, don't agree with abortion? Burn the fucking clinic down! Firebomb the Doctor's home! They do it in... oh wait they don't... anywhere else at all.

    I appreciate these comments could offend Americans, but when are you guys going to get used to that?

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  4. To be honest, dunno too much about hockey so won't comment on that although the arguments were interesting.

    On a side note, definitely had to crack up at the Canada's shorts pic. First time I'd seen that.

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  5. There is NO sport I love more than hockey which is why I am writing this while watching my Flyers play. I can't stand the arguments people take against hockey because it honestly just proves how ill educated they are about the sport.

    Those glowing pucks with comet like tails on them made me go into epileptic seizures...they are hateful! NO thank you. It isn't that freaking hard to follow people.

    Yes, the players are fit...do you know how insanely tiring and physically straining it is to skate like that!? Come on...they are because they need to be. Consequently fit does not mean attractive as very few are...they get beat the fuck up out there and rarely have their own teeth...and I LOVE them that way!

    There are more and more players of "color" though I really can't stand Emery (he did shit for us here in Philly plus he's kinda douchey)...sorry just don't. We have Wayne Simmons now and the dude is just too cool!

    Asham is a beast! I miss him here. That KO was insane! I am not a violent person and unlike race fans do not watch just for crashes or fights but man do I still enjoy the hell out of them!

    Alright--this post along with the game being on has me all a flutter. I get so up in arms about people who diss a sport that is just hands down amazing. Idiots. Loved this post. Way to put them in their place!

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  6. 1. I can follow a black puck on white ice. I can't follow a black puck being handled by people with black skates, sticks, and uniforms. The glowing puck was awesome for the 5 minutes I could stomach watching hockey on TV before I passed out. And the goal judge? The fact that they have to employ someone whose sole job is to determine when a score occurs kinda underscores my point.
    2. That fight just looks like someone with a glass jaw got hit.
    3. Speed is fine; adds flash to an otherwise boring game. Football is a brilliant exercise in strategy; you have to slow it down to appreciate the subtleties. Baseball also sucks; not going to argue that point. (And yeah - American's, collectively, are fucking stupid. The mere fact that Sarah Palin is talked about at all is evidence enough.)
    4. Ah yes. Draw out a boring game longer. And football players need to recover as well - that's why they can only play one game a week.
    5. In football, in the regular season, they play one overtime period, same rules as the rest of the game. Playoffs they keep playing until the game is decided. They don't resort to some weird punt/pass/kick skills competition. They play the game they way it was designed to be played.
    6. I can also find pictures of ripped football players. But when you're sole job on the field is to move 350 pound men around and prevent them from destroying your players, you need a little mass. And despite their girth, they're still in better cardio shape than the overwhelming majority of people.
    7. Yeah. Having brown people in the league doesn't mean they're liked. A minor league coach pulled his team off the ice because of rampant ethnic slurs. You don't see that in other sports.
    8. And this was fun! It's nice to have proof that we aren't actually the same person... ;-)

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  7. Wow, you went everywhere with this post, didn't you?

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My frail ego requires validation.