Why Hockey and I Were Never a Match

As I look forward to being pelted by rain on my way to a lecture, I can also look forward to playoff hockey on the Versus network.

That’s right hockey lovers, I said it, the jig is up!

I don’t like hockey and I never have, I’ll admit it.

I did not grow up loving soccer either, but by nature of watching and being around the game, I’ve developed a respect for it. But hockey? We just don’t mix.

Hockey takes the worst aspects from every major sport, and somehow puts them on display all at the same time. This is akin to seeing a left-handed catcher—you don’t want to say anything, but it hurts to watch.

Canada’s national sport manages to combine the lack of scoring from soccer with often mind-numbing continuous play, and the game lacks the structure for the casual viewer to wrap his/her mind around.

From America’s favorite past-time, hockey just so happens to borrow an annoyingly small playing object.

A baseball is small enough, and a puck, well, is basically a flat baseball. And it's black, so when it’s skidding all over the ice, viewers are hard-pressed to follow the action.

Moreover, hockey teams usually share their facility with a basketball franchise. All basketball arenas look the same (i.e. Quicken Loans Arena and the Verizon Center look like fraternal twins separated at birth.)

Unlike baseball, where each ballpark has its own nuances and charm, this indoor athletic experience strips the locality from the event. For example, when the Boston Bruins are playing, there is nothing inside the arena that even resembles Beantown.

It’s bad enough that athletes are skating around chasing a six-ounce puck with a stick, but hockey adds a gratuitous amount of violence from American football.

Maybe it is just me, but in football, the violence, for the most part, serves a purpose, to stop the ball from being advanced. The whistle is blown, the play is over, and tackling halts.

In hockey, not only is checking another player into the boards not regulated, but such physical aggression has nothing to do with advancing the score or helping the team to win the match.

What's even worse is that players are allowed to have fistfights!

What kind of barbaric ritual allows two guys to go bare-knuckles in front of 15,000 screaming fans?! Not even Dana White of the UFC would allow that.

This is probably the biggest sticking point for me, and most hockey enthusiasts argue that it lets players police the sport. But isn’t that the same for every sport?

In baseball, you throw a high heater.

In football, you deliver a blind-side hit.

In basketball, you give a hard foul.

In soccer, you slide-tackle.

Why should hockey players be allowed to use their fists during the game?

Is this the type of message we should be proposing to younger generations? If you have a problem, don’t resolve it within the confines of the established rules, but instead resort to barbarianism?

Hockey, it’s not you, it’s me … Wait, no, it is you.

Maybe we'll meet again next fall, but don't count on it.