Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Baseball v. Hockey

I went to my first hockey game of the season tonight -- my first game since last season's playoffs -- the debacle that was Game 7. But that's besides the point. Fresh off a horrible baseball season, and in the middle of a football season that I'm not too excited about, I started thinking about why it took me so long to really appreciate hockey.

So I started making a list comparing my favorite sport, baseball, against hockey.

The players:
Baseball -- Southerners, Latin Americans, and the Japanese.
Hockey -- Canadians, Eastern Europeans, and the occasional kid from New England or the upper Midwest.

The fans:
Baseball -- People with crewcuts and old Jewish men.
Hockey -- People with mullets.

The music:
Baseball -- A lot of country, with a little rap and salsa thrown in.
Hockey -- Rock N' Roll.

The weather:
Baseball -- Ideally, warm and sunny on a Sunday afternoon, but mostly hot and humid on a weekday night. And then there are rain delays . . . .
Hockey -- Cold. Earmuffs would have been nice.

The pace:

Baseball -- Leisurely.
Hockey -- Frenetic.

The resolution of a tie game:
Baseball -- Extra innings.
Hockey -- 4-on-4 overtime, and if that doesn't work, a dramatic shootout.


Somehow, I think hockey wins.


6 comments:

Justin S. said...

What do you have against Latin Americans and the Japanese?

DSL said...

Yeah, what's that about? Hockey players are pretty much white and white. I did enjoy hockey the best, but soccer athletes are cuter and they're not wimps when it comes to weather like in baseball. Hockey's inside so I don't know about that. I should go to another hockey game sometimes. Wow, can you believe I said that?

dara said...

Justin: On some level, it boils down to the issue of liquor: rum vs. vodka.

DSL: Well, you have to think about where they have ice. As for soccer, well, they have some cute players too, but that wasn't really where I was going with that.

Anonymous said...

I have almost zero experience with hockey; I have been to a few games and made a half-hearted effort to get into it last fall, just to see what it was all about.

Two downsides (in my view) your list doesn't touch on: the fact that it's far less watchable on television than in person (baseball is better in person, too, but I think the gap between live/tv is narrower), and the extremely long gap between periods in a hockey game.

Anonymous said...

I love hokey, it is a fast game, the fans are great and the players are not to bad to look at either.

Anonymous said...

oops, hockey. I must have taken one too many pucks to the head....