[UA] The sports question

[Will Mitchell]

As a Canadian and a giant sports nerd, I feel qualified to field this one ;)

These days you could hardly call hockey a low-scoring game, but that's
because, apparently, it's being modified to appeal to Americans more. The
goalies have smaller equipment and players are punished more often (making
for two-minute 'powerplays' where one team has more players, often resulting
in a goal).

The biggest difference between hockey and, say, soccer or baseball, at least
to me, is the salary cap-- no matter how much revenue a team makes, they
can't turn their team into a juggernaut worth 3x the next team. In the
English Premier League, there are four giant teams that will almost never
fail to make the top 4 (although, I'm told, this used to be 'the top 3'). In
hockey, that almost never happens. A team that's at the top one year can be
at the bottom the next, these days. In fact, both of last year's Stanley Cup
finalists didn't even make the playoffs this year. That's one of the
greatest things about the new game, I think-- your team has a chance, no
matter what, as long as your Manager/Coach are good. The fights have gone
down, as well, because you're more likely these days to get into real
trouble for fighting, and a big "dumb dumb fighter," as the main hockey
personality in Canada would say, is more of a liability than a boon.

So, uhh, to answer your question, I'm not sure where hockey fits into this,
because while it is a huge game in Canada, it's also the main sport (or, one
of the main sports) in Russia, Sweden, Finland, and a few other countries. I
guess to compare it to anything, it'd probably be soccer, but that's because
it follows the 'hit this small thing into your opponents' netted object
while they try to stop you and do the same' thing. Not at all like baseball,
and only slightly like gridiron football.

Back to UA though, there has to be some magic in the numerology that goes
into those Proline things... you know, where people try and guess what the
scores are going to be? And try to win money?

On 5/22/07, Tim Groth <tim.groth at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Where does hockey, and thus Canadian sports, fit into this?  It seems to
> me (as a Yankee living here) that sports, like most things here, blends
> European and American influences.  Hockey is lower scoring than American
> games but often has a lot going on.  Including fights.
>
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