Nashville Predators: Hockey is the Best Sport in the World

Basketball: The Other Indoor Winter Sport

I’ve only been to a handful of basketball games; no one in my family is really a big fan. Our collective favorite team is the Globetrotters, who are the only “professional” team I’ve seen live. Bearing that in mind, here is why I’ve never been able to get into basketball – there’s just too much happening.

Yeah, that’s it. Too much. At a Nashville Predators game, you consider a high scoring game to be something like 5-3 or higher. Rarely do you see the combined scores break double digits. Meanwhile, that score can be achieved in mere minutes in basketball.

You spend so much time watching them dribble, score, dribble, score, back and forth like cats watching a game of Pong. While each basket is a celebration, it isn’t that important to the overall game – not like a goal in hockey. Even though hockey can have some dry spells between goals, at least there’s always the promise of a fight looming over the ice, something to snap us out of our trances. In basketball, you look forward to the rebound, then you lather, rinse, and repeat. 

Sure, Space Jam is a cultural icon that will never be matched, but not even Bugs Bunny can make basketball more than vaguely interesting.

Next: Hockey is Better than Soccer

Soccer: The Less Relevant International Sport

Like so many suburban children, I played soccer through most of elementary school. I learned the trials and tribulations of being a goalie when I was younger because YMCA boys don’t come out to play, they come out for blood. I took a soccer ball to my stomach and it carried me off my feet and into the goal. Despite my suffering and my bravery, I was not awarded a YMCA Soccer Purple Heart – instead, the pimply high school volunteer referee gave the opposite team a point because the ball went in the goal.

I’m not saying I’m bitter, but I certainly have not forgiven or forgotten. Maybe this event has perverted my view of the sport, or maybe I’ve realized that soccer isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sure, World Cup time is fun because I’m ridiculously patriotic and the memes online are on point during the Cup. But after the World Cup? What then? I’m not going out of my way to watch soccer matches on TV. I’m not clamoring to play the latest FIFA installment. Why?

It’s because soccer is only really relevant on a national scale once every few years – just like speed skating, dressage, and synchronized swimming. Otherwise, I’m just cheering on FSU’s teams because of pride in my school, just like I cheer on Team USA because pride in my country. While national interest in soccer comes and goes, hockey still remains in our minds and our hearts. 

As a bonus, the Miracle on Ice effectively started the fall of communism and put cracks in the Berlin Wall. Let me know when soccer puts Kim Jong Un in his place.

Next: Hockey is Better than Baseball

Baseball: America’s Favorite Naptime

Don’t fight me on this, I’ve met die-hard, lifelong baseball fans who have told me that you only watch baseball with one eye. Baseball is called America’s favorite pastime for good reason – all it does is pass time. I need uniformity in my life, I need set time periods. This whole “wait for a third out and THEN it’s a new inning” thing is simply a crazed shenanigan. Games can go on for absolute YEARS if teams are just really good at not getting outs.

And it’s not like really interesting things happen in between outs. I honestly don’t understand why Ferris Bueller decided to spend his day off at a baseball game. I would have chanced the lecture on Marxism and Feudalism and whatever other -ism he was complaining about; there’s a glimmer of hope that something wild would happen at a public high school.

No, at baseball, it’s just sit in the stands, reading the newspaper and peering over the corner when you hear the crack of the bat. Maybe you’ll see a home run. Maybe you’ll catch a ball. Maybe maybe maybe. But I guarantee you that whatever game you’re seeing today is pretty much identical to the game you watched last week and the game you’ll watch next week and the game you’ll watch in five months because the season goes on for too long.

Hockey has structure. It has excitement. It’s indoors, in a climate-controlled environment, so you’re comfortable, even during a dull moment. The Zamboni is cooler than the chalk thing that redraws the lines of the diamond. Nashville Predators Hockey players are hotter than baseball players. It’s a proven fact. Baseball doesn’t have Roman Josi. Like I said, don’t fight me on this. Hockey is better than baseball.

Next: Hockey is Better than Football

Football: Masters of Manipulation

I bet you’re wondering how I’m going to pull this off, especially considering I’m going against a national holiday. But why is the Super Bowl one of the most watched events in our country? It sure isn’t for the love of football. It’s for the Doritos commercials. In my nearly twenty years on this Earth, I have not really watched the Super Bowl for the teams in the game. I’ve watched it for the halftime show.

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I didn’t go to my high school football games so I could watch the Walker Valley Mustangs lose again, I went to watch the marching band. Same reason why I went to most FSU games that weren’t against our rivals – I wanted to see the Marching Chiefs. And when I went to the Miami game, it was because the Canes make my blood boil and I want to see them defeated, not because I like watching football.

We think that we like football. We are super convinced that we like this sport. But we don’t. We like everything else we’ve stuffed in these games. We like the tailgates. We like the halftime entertainment. We like having capitalism shoved down our throats during the play stoppage that happens every two minutes during an NFL game.

Now, Nashville Predators hockey doesn’t insult us with a bunch of extra stuff shoved in to make us think we like the main event. We don’t go to a hockey game purely to watch the mascot’s antics. We don’t sit through seven Final Round games for the commercials. We watch hockey to watch hockey and to enjoy the game itself.

Next: The Predators Shifting Defensive Core

Find a friend that doesn’t realize how wonderful the sport of hockey is and get them to a game.  In fact, if that is the case, why are they really your friend?