Hockey is exhilarating and a true manly sport. Much more exciting than Baseball.
Unlike the NBA which is all talk, Hockey players actually fight, break noses, and smash into each other. I would honestly say 95% of NHL players could beat up any NBA player if it came to a bar fight or something.
Anyways, yeah It's the last great sport untouched by the wussification of America's other sports like the NFL.
Personally, I think that's really off. I played football for for 9 years including pee-wees, then rugby for about 10 years after that (Im in semi-retirement now), and playing rugby, a sport without pads, full contact, the only pads you can wear amounting to basically ace bandages and mouthguards, where fights break out pretty regularly (at least punches thrown and landed), it was like two-hand touch next to football.
And NBA players don't not fight because they're soft. They stop from fighting because you get suspended if you engage in any of that.
And I really take offense to hockey players being end all-be all tough. They're tough, but they're not any more tough as a group than anyone else who is in game-shape and willing to throw a punch in a bar.
I would say that Hockey has the best depth of fighters.
Mostly because their are so many guys in the NBA and the NFL that have no clue how to fight because they never had to growing up. They were just so much bigger then everybody else, no one wanted to challenge them.
Yeah, but hockey fighters aren't exactly mma guys. I see your logic, and I understand it.
But remember football players are still bigger and stronger on average.
But that's not the main point here. Most of my judgement regarding the toughness of hockey players stems from a prolonged period of aggression between my rugby team and the hockey team in college. They're tough, and they're not scared to fight, but they're not an elite fighting force by any means.
And for those who maintain that hockey is 'tougher' than football because they can fight in game, look at the length of football players careers. Their bodies are broken by 35 most times. Not just old, broken. Brains mush.