NHL Playoffs > NBA Playoffs

[Triple B]

[highlight]Yes overall hockey players are tougher [/highlight](ice is as hard as concrete and they can skate up to around 30 or so mph) but to act like all NBA players  are ******* is laughable.  Psychos like stephen jackson or ron artest could more than hold their own in a fight with a hockey player.

That's really all I'm saying.... overall. Of course, you'll have the exceptions on both sides but anybody who's followed hockey and seen the way hockey players have to be pretty much comatose to keep them off the ice know that they are by far tougher, not just better fighters.

[HarveyGlass]

Ever hear of a thing called "The Punch"? Kermit Washington almost killed Rudy T in a fight with a single punch.  When has a hockey player almost killed someone by punching them?  Yes overall hockey players are tougher (ice is as hard as concrete and they can skate up to around 30 or so mph) but to act like all NBA players  are ******* is laughable.  Psychos like stephen jackson or ron artest could more than hold their own in a fight with a hockey player.  

Yeah, I know that punch.  And it was a wussie punch.  Complete and total cheap shot to someone who wasn't even a part of it.  You don't see that kind of cowardly bullsh!t in the NHL.  And if you do, there would be a reckoning.

I'll usually defend basketball over anything, but there's just a lot of ignorance going on here.

If there is one thing that hockey lords over every other major sport it's this line from the article...

NHL players aren't playing for shoe contracts and bonus money.

[Velcro]

You do see it - Todd Bertuzzi... and yes, there is reckoning... as there is in any sport.  Teammates back up teammates.  And the leagues hand down suspensions/fines, etc.

I think hockey players are on average tougher minded... but that doesn't mean tougher in general.  Just because they play on ice doesn't mean crap.  What means crap is as trip says... playing hurt all the freaking time, just like Baron Davis, and Steve Nash this week. While i wouldn't take nash in a fight, i wouldn't take some 6'3 hockey player in a street fight with Ron Artest, Stephen jackson, or quite a large number of 6'9 thuggish players.

Sure, they can fight, but they fight by certain unwritten rules.  Are we saying basketball players would have to fight by standing on skates and throwing off their gloves, and then the fight is broken up when they are down?

The definition of tough is kinda absurd so yes, this whole arguement is pretty odd.

Both sports are great fun to watch; hockey is overall faster and continuous action, which makes it great; basketball has attraction to people for many other reasons.  I think part of what makes basketball far dominant in perception is that so many people LOVE college hoops (probably 100 or 1000x more fans of that than college hockey, heck most schools don't have hockey teams in DI)  People then follow the star players through college, the ncaa tournament, and into the nba.  Hockey... we hear about an occasional phenom like Crosby... but it isn't in the face of people like hoops, and i don't think it ever will be, especially with the emergence of Nascar.  There are too many other big sports taking precendence over hockey on tv.  Hockey will still get its fans, its die hards, and some casual fans, but it will always pale in comparison to the other 4 sports in general.

[HarveyGlass]

Good post, Velcro.

I'll also add this in hockey's defense; the sport is very much new to most of the U.S..  I know it's been around awhile, but almost exclusively in Canada and a few northern cities(Detroit, Chicago, NY, etc.).  I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to remember the birth of a ton of franchises(SJ, TB, FLA, CAR, NSH, ATL, DAL, ANA, etc.), so the sport is, in a sense, still in its infancy here.  When today's kids living in places like Raliegh, NC and Nashville, TN grow up, they'll raise their kids hockey fans, and so on.

I have a feeling hockey will become much more popular in the next 50 years.

Nice Manute Bol pics, BTW. ;D

[Matt]

i think NBA players are the best atheletes out of any professional sport....on strictly God-given ability.

there are other sports that require other skills that basketball players might not have like hand-eye coordination and reaction times that baseball players need.

as for basketball players on skates, might have more to do with the fact that they have probably NEVER been on ice before.  i wonder how many NHL guys could do a cross over dribble or reverse layup.

i mean, everything is going to have its only skill set.  look at Jordan, one of the most atheletically gifted people in sports history..and he looked terrible trying to hit a fast ball

[Velcro]

very true Rezz... Most kids nowadays are told to focus on a specific sport and stick with it their entire lives... (a very bad idea from a conditioning standpoint).  They become specialized athletes that have a particular skill set and are phenomenal at that... but they don't cross over sports quite as easily.  There are still those out there that can do the cross over, but you will see fewer and fewer Dave Winfields out there, and more and more Lebron James' who are labled Phenom in their sport by the age of 12 and soon you'll see nike contracts handed out to newborns

[Herman_Momart]

nice name drop with the Dave Winnfield.  When I worked at a memorabilia aution house, he gave us his University of Minnesota mitt and basketball jersey.   He was very humble about being a great baseball player but was bragging about how nice he was in basketball.  It was pretty funny.  

[Herman_Momart]

trip you will be happy to hear I watched the overtime between Ottawa and Buffalo last night.  Great game!

Right after I almost threw a bottle through my TV watching the refs call everything on the Suns last night and nothing on the Spurs.  Amare had 4 fouls in the early 3rd quarter and two of them were phantom calls.  He had 14 points in his first 15 minutes and only playd about 20 minutes.  The refs kept our dominating player out of the game.  So garbage how refs can control the outcome of game, maybe even a series.  I'm still waiting for the makeup calls.  

[Velcro]

I'm waiting for someone to knee Bowen in the groin... he seems to think its ok to kick and knee people left and right... wait til it happens to him... he'll be whining like a baby.

[HarveyGlass]

I want to see someone slap Stephen Jackson around.

I thought he was supposed to be some sort of tough guy, but he cries like a baby after every little thing that doesn't go his way.  That is weak.  I'd like to see him take an elbow to the groin, then get called for the charge. ;D