Originally posted by: starkiller

Originally posted by: Nanner Split
Howdya figure that? Is there any running and/or catching during which you have to worry about guys twice your size smashing you to a pulp in hockey? I've been doing that for the past four days, and it ain't no walk in the park.

Not that I'm agreeing or disagreeing about the difficulty of each game:

1. Skating is going to be more difficult than running. Possible exception: football in the rain (mud).
2. Twice your size? No. However, fighting in hockey is tolerated. Football does not allow it at all. I would have to consider Hockey to be the rougher of the 2 sports.
3. The end zone is as wide as the field, and all you need is for the guy with the ball to cross the plane. In hockey, you've got a (forgive the factual errors, you get the point I hope) 6x5 goal area that you must hit the puck into, assuming you can get it past the guy in the padding that fills some 75% of that area.

1. The skating would make hockey faster, but in football you're under about 30 pounds of padding, running as fast as you can trying to catch a pass (if you're a receiver), which would at least make it more strenuous, in my opinion. Plus I've heard of broken legs and ankles resulting from cleats getting stuck in the ground with large men tackling them.
2. In the heat of the moment, it's kinda hard to fight one particular person when every other player on the opposing team is trying to tackle your ass too.
3. Yes, but you have to get the ball past a line of about 10-12 very large men who don't want the ball to cross that plane. My ass has hit the ground plenty of times trying to get through that defensive line, and even a weak defense is still pretty rough.

All in all, I'd say it's difficult to compare the two, since they really aren't a whole lot alike.