Sports Revelation 1:0

Up until the NHL strike in 2005, I had followed the NHL and thoroughly enjoyed the sport of hockey. Since the strike took place, however, I have not really paid much attention to the NHL but thought I still liked the sport. After all, I still pay attention to the OHL and try to get to some games out in Oshawa each year, even with some of the dumb rules adopted by the league in recent years.

Since Toronto received a professional lacrosse team, my rekindled love for lacrosse has steadily grown into a passion for the game and has replaced my love for hockey. Though I do not love the sport of hockey as I once did, as mentioned above, until recently I still thought I liked hockey. My revelation occurred just over a week ago while I was watching coverage of the Canada Winter Games on television. The seed, already planted with my love for lacrosse, started growing while watching the gold medal ringette game between Ontario and Alberta, and finally grew into a confirmed revelation while watching the men’s bronze medal hockey game between Alberta and British Columbia. My revelation: I don’t really enjoy hockey that much anymore.

Being Canadian, in fear of being ostracized by my fellow ‘countrymen’, I did not want to face the harsh reality but in the end I must, I really do not enjoy hockey. Because of this feeling, I had to watch some NHL hockey to be sure the decision was made based on the sport itself and not as a result of a few games played between young amateurs. Unfortunately, my feeling was confirmed.

Even with the fast paced action of hockey, I find the sport is very sloppy compared to others. This sloppiness severely affects the flow of the action and, in my opinion, takes away from the enjoyment of watching. As an aside, this sloppiness does lead to some good solid checks from time to time. Although the same sort of sloppiness is found in both ringette and lacrosse, I find the flow of the latter two sports does not suffer as severely as it does in hockey. The play in hockey does not seem to be as controlled as the other sports mentioned and without control, the game play suffers. Some will argue that lacrosse is slower than hockey and they may be right, but with less loose ball scrums, there is more action in lacrosse.

I doubt I will convince anyone that lacrosse is better than hockey; I am not trying to, I am just giving my interpretation of things and providing a rationalization to my revelation. I do still like hockey; it just is not at the top of my list anymore when it comes to sports.