Somebody Needs to Say It: the NHL Is More Physical Than the NFL
Of the four major American sports, hockey is easily the least popular. Canadians and certain regions of America take it seriously, but for the most part Americans either don't watch hockey at all or only watch it between the NFL and MLB seasons.
However, I think something needs to be said for the NHL that nobody wants to admit.
Fans of football often praise the physical play in the NFL. Teams brag about having hard-hitting defenses and playing smash mouth football. However, the league has been getting progressively less physical year after year.
In hockey, that is not the case. If a hockey player gets praised for being a hard hitter, it's because he's a hard hitter, not because the new rules make him look great when compared to his peers.
Let's take a look at the track record of the two leagues:
Before the 1970s, the NFL allowed full contact coverage of wide receivers. Anything short of tackling the receiver before the ball touched him was not considered pass interference. Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers safety Mel Blount took full advantage of this rule, to the point that the league instituted newer, stricter rules on defenders so that receivers wouldn't get hurt. The rule prevented Blount from basically brutalizing every receiver as they ran their route, and the rule became known as the Mel Blount rule.
The NFL has rules for roughing the passer and roughing the kicker. Understandable, sure, because when the quarterback has already released the ball there's no longer any reason to plant his face into the dirt. However, we've seen these penalties be called more and more excessively in the past years.
The NFL even has a rule for RUNNING INTO the kicker. Nobody can touch the kicker at all, even accidentally. The kicker is a delicate flower who must not be trampled upon.
Going back to the Steelers, receiver Hines Ward was fined multiple times last year for blocks he threw in a game, even when no penalty flag was thrown. Teammate Troy Polamalu famously responded by saying the NFL "is becoming a pansy league."
This year, the NFL instituted a rule making it illegal for receivers to throw crackback blocks on defenders. So, something a corner is trained to watch out for from Pop Warner all the way up to the NCAA level will no longer be important once they reach the highest level of play, because the NFL doesn't want their big, scary defenders getting shown up by physical wide receivers like Ward.
More famously, of course, the NFL instituted what has come to be known as the Tom Brady rule, where a defender cannot tackle a QB after being blocked to the ground unless he stands back up before making the tackle.
Or, to put it another way: offensive linemen will now be throwing defenders to the ground every down, because it's illegal for them to hit the QB now without standing back up and asking "mother may I sack the quarterback?"
I think Polamalu may have been on to something.
Now, let's contrast this with the NHL.
NHL players are routinely checked into glass walls. This isn't illegal, and in fact is encouraged as a good play.
This year, the NHL debated on whether or not it should make it illegal for players to target one another's heads when checking them. Fearing concussions of the players, the league considered cracking down on headhunters in the NHL...and decided AGAINST it.
Up until recently, icing was called whenever a player hit the puck from his team's zone across the ice into another team's zone without scoring a goal. Recently, the NHL modified this rule so that a player from the other team besides the goalie would have to touch the puck with his stick before icing is called.
This is different from international "no touch" icing and results in MORE physical play in the NHL from players racing to be the first to touch the puck.
The NHL not only has fighting, they both allow it and have a section of the rule book governing it. If an NFL player so much as throws a punch, they'll be fined at the least and probably suspended for multiple games.
Despite the reputation of the NFL as a physical league, it's done more and more each year to downplay the importance of physical football, while the NHL has done more and more to make physical defense an integral part of hockey.
So, if nobody else will say it, I will: The NHL is the most physical of the major sports. After the addition of the Brady rule, I'm not so sure the NFL is even a close second.
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