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Hockey has the advantage that the sport could we reworked into something less violent. Hockey could survive a change to the rules that would reduce blows to th

by Pxtl 9y ago

Hockey has the advantage that the sport could we reworked into something less violent. Hockey could survive a change to the rules that would reduce blows to the head. Football is such an intrinsically contact sport that I don't think a safer game would even be recognizable. Actually, that might be worse... If hockey turns out to have as bad a concussion problem, the leadership of the sport is likely even more culpable because they had more options to fix the problem than football does.

rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
American football is also obsessively measured. The difference of a few yards at any point in time can be the difference of a game. Players are also obsessively measured for their performance, so every second counts towards a professional player's career - and their compensation. Players are highly incentivized to "give it their all", and that's how people end up getting injured or receive massive head trauma. Hockey can be just as violent, but it's a much more fluid sport, so the pressure isn't on as much for the extra exceptional effort.
- gotthemwmds 9y ago
  s/difference of a few yards/difference of 1 yard/ signed, this totally not still upset Seahawks fan. (re: 2015 Superbowl)
- geebee 9y ago
  I don't understand Rugby, Australian rules, or Gaelic football especially well (or US football for that matter, though I've watched it casually over the years), but my understanding is that tacking in these sports has a different purpose and that tackling technique reflects this. You may be on to something with you comment about yards - in American football, it can even be a game of inches. As a result, tackling isn't a way to halt play or stop someone, or to transition during flow of play - you need to essentially completely halt that person's forward movement without even giving an inch. I've thought this may be why American football has more of the full body collision, where two (very large and powerfully built) men collide at high velocity almost horizontal to the earth. They're trying to gain as little as a few inches in the collision. I've heard complaints from Australian rules players who come to the US about tackling - that the way US players have learned to tackle doesn't have much strategic value and greatly increases the possibility of injury, buy they continue to tackle this way when they join Australian rules leagues. That's what I've heard and thought about, I do want to be clear that I don't know too much about all this - what I've written is more of a question in case someone in the know could weigh in.
  - Joky 9y ago
    Another difference on tackling in Rugby: you can only tackle the ball carrier.
    - nervousvarun 9y ago
      Not sure what you're saying here...are you equating blocking and tackling? In American football you also may only tackle the ball carrier. You can initiate contact other guys (usually in the form of blocking), and that can be very violent at times...but I don't think there's a scenario where you can tackle someone without the ball (and it not be called for a penalty).
      - Jeremy1026 9y ago
        In rugby there is no blocking. The only time non-ball carriers come into contact with the opposing team is during a scrum or accidental collision (which are quite rare).
        jamesblonde 9y ago
        Or a ruck - clearing out the ruck, it's allowed there. Or a catch and drive in the lineout. But yes, the contact in these situations is more pushing than collisions.
        AOsborn 9y ago
        Yes. Far less physical however. You can 'join' a ruck, but not tackle full steam, let alone a shoulder charge or direct hit.
        phillc73 9y ago
        Or in Rugby Union, during a ruck or maul. The main difference in tackling technique between American Football and both codes of Rugby is use of the arms. In Rugby the arms must be used to tackle the opposing player. A shoulder charge, with no arms used, is illegal and may result in expulsion from the game. In a recent New Zealand vs British and Irish Lions game, NZ player Sonny Bill Williams was given a red card and sent from the pitch for this exact offence. The other main points to note are that the opposing player can only be tackled below shoulder level and, as you've pointed out, in open play only the ball carrying may be tackled (or blocked).
- notahacker 9y ago
  The other big difference is what's obsessively measured. A few yards makes a huge difference in rugby, and players are certainly highly incentivised to give it their all, but even for the battering ram-type players, their ability to help the team actually get the ball across the gain line is a function of the stamina and mobility to get around the pitch for multiple phases of play, complex situational awareness and some degree of ball handling skills, not just the ability to block off the man directly in front of them for a few plays. Not to mention rugby's increasingly strictly applied and penalised rules on what is and isn't a legal tackle which mean that a player who doesn't tackle in a relatively safe manner will be a liability to their teammates as well as themselves
- bennettfeely 9y ago
  What? There are just five men on the ice for a team in hockey, there's arguably more pressure for each individual player to "give it their all" at any one moment than in football where there's 11 men on the field. As someone lucky to be from Pittsburgh where we have both the Penguins and Steelers consistently being the top teams in the NHL and NFL respectively, there is no shortage of serious brain trauma in the NHL. Just ask Sidney Crosby.
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
I think the rules could get reworked to make it less dangerous for brain injury. Take a cue from Australian Rules Football: remove all padding and make high tackles that endanger the head illegal.
- mrspeaker 9y ago
  Great idea! Less head injuries, but still a hard-hittin' sport https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1aU0hz5Tf8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1aU0hz5Tf8
  - bglazer 9y ago
    Virtually every example of a "big hit" in that video ends with the person who got hit showing the fencing response (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fencing_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fencing_response). That body pose indicates a pretty severe concussion. In fact, the most popular video on YouTube about the fencing response has a shocking amount of overlap with the "big hits" video you shared. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlXjwAlOflA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlXjwAlOflA Frankly, your video was kind of hard to watch. It's basically 3 minutes of people getting their brains rattled in their skulls.
    - mrspeaker 9y ago
      That's true! I didn't think about it because it was a collection of "rare" events - hitting above the shoulders is not a valid tackle. Usually won't get these hits in a game. But still, obviously it certainly exists, and I'm sure there is a lot of head trauma every year.
  - kenjackson 9y ago
    I have never seen this video. I always had heard that without the gear that rugby was less brutal than football -- but seriously I don't know. Those hits looked devastating... I could not watch that sport.
    - 9y ago
perfectstorm 9y ago
field hockey is not as violent as ice hockey and they could implement the same rules over. I believe Rugby too is not as violent as American Football but I guess less exciting ? (I don't watch either so don't know).
- phillc73 9y ago
  I think Rugby Union is more interesting than American Football (in my biased opinion), because the ball is in play for a lot longer and the game has better momentum. Then again, many Rugby Union vs Rugby League debates involve the criticism of Union that it is too stop-start. There is certainly a growing awareness of head injuries in Union and League at all levels. Players which show any sign of head trauma are (should be) immediately removed from the field for a 10 minute evaluation. However, having played Union for nearly 20 years (from the age of 14), I can attest to the fact that there are many occasions where a head clash occurs which doesn't result in concussion, but still can't be very healthy. Besides head injuries, I've required an ACL operation due to Rugby injury. My shoulders and back are also in pretty bad shape. I now have a young son and am really trying to steer him towards cricket rather than Rugby.
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    Rugby has gone through periods of being a boring game and has had constant rule changes to try and make it more interesting, some of which significantly changed the nature of the game. The period of constant scrums was an especially dull period, as was the rolling mauls period. I vaguely remember a period of constant punts from each side down the field. I haven't kept up to date with Rugby, but google seems to suggest boring rolling mauls are back. As an Englishman, I still have to say cricket is one of the most boring sports to play, with only 3 players in a team of 22 doing anything even vaguely interesting at any one time (batter, bowler, wicket keeper, 9 other players are literally sitting doing nothing and 9 others are standing around). It's less a sport and more an excuse to lounge around. For all it's faults with prima-donnas, football is one of the most engaging team sports with much less risk of injury than rugby or ball-in-the-face field hockey.
jonny_eh 9y ago
Or even better, change it to flag football
Waterluvian 9y ago
Hockey can be a beautiful game of finesse, speed, and precision. It could absolutely be re-worked. Football is fundamentally flawed. Many positions exist entirely because it's rough and violent. Players who never touch the football in a well played game.
- planteen 9y ago
  Football can also be played with flags or where players are not tackled by saying the play is over when momentum is stopped. Countless intramural and pickup games are played like this every day. And you still have an offensive line in setup, depending on the number of players.
  - EpicEng 9y ago
    Aaaaand viewership drops 90%.
- icelancer 9y ago
  >>Hockey can be a beautiful game of finesse, speed, and precision. It could absolutely be re-worked. Indeed. Olympic hockey is a perfect example of a step in that direction, and one of the greatest versions of the game in existence.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    Watching the Canadian national hockey team is one of the highlights of the Winter Olympics. The US team would be better if it had access to all those kids wasting their athletic potential on the worst sport in the world--football--and the second-worst sport in the world--soccer. If it ditched the requirement that the game always be played on ice, the skill level of hockey in the US could be comparable to its basketball. All those high school football stadiums could get some asphalt surface, chainlink fencing to stand in for the glass, and a few sets of sticks and inline skates, and we could all watch hockey on Friday nights instead of kids knocking their skulls together.
    - 9y ago
EpicEng 9y ago
>Hockey has the advantage that the sport could we reworked into something less violent. Hockey could survive a change to the rules that would reduce blows to the head. Could it? I wonder how many people would continue to watch hockey if fights weren't essentially sanctioned as a part of the game. I imagine only the diehards as it's not the most entertaining sport in the world...
- neaden 9y ago
  I mean, only about a third of hockey games have a fight, and usually it's not that dramatic. Part of the issue though is that fights are partly for players to enforce unwritten rules about sportsmanship, so if you got rid of fights there is some bad conduct that might increase that could also be dangerous.
  - tblair 9y ago
    The answer for the bad conduct is suspensions, but the PA fights hard to keep them toothless. I don't understand why they want to defend their member giving dirty hits instead of the one receiving them, but it certainly seems that way to me.
- pkulak 9y ago
  Who really likes the fights, though? I don't know anyone who does. They are more boring than commercials. I don't think it's the fights though. They're mostly just hugging. I think the checks are what do the damage.
- bernardom 9y ago
  College hockey has no fights and is awesome to watch. (Go Red!)
- gertef 9y ago
  https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/hockey-fights-are-going-away-as-necessity-dwindles/ https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/hockey-fights-are-going-a...
  - 9y ago
hota_mazi 9y ago
> Football is such an intrinsically contact sport that I don't think a safer game would even be recognizable. And yet, rubgy and Australian football have just as much contact and do not suffer from an endemic injury problem. Maybe something related to the padding?
- dizzystar 9y ago
  Here's a bit where they measured the force of rugby -vs- football tackles. Football is 3 times harder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7tGY-VDx3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7tGY-VDx3o Don't have much commentary on the subject and just wanted to share the vid. I'd only think that a difference like that can't really be resolved to padding.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    It's a pretty unfair comparison, though I'd expect it's largely representative. A rugby union player has to run around the pitch for 2 bouts of 40 minutes [about 40 minutes of 'ball in play' time]. According to this article - https://qz.com/150577/an-average-nfl-game-more-than-100-commercials-and-just-11-minutes-of-play/ https://qz.com/150577/an-average-nfl-game-more-than-100-comm... - the average NFL match is 11 minutes of action, in [average] 4s bursts, over a 3+ hour period. Many NFL positions can optimise for muscle mass without worrying about stamina and sustained speed. FWIW the measured tackle and at least one footage tackle [8mins 26s] in your linked video - https://youtu.be/TSc_Gxq1two https://youtu.be/TSc_Gxq1two - look illegal to me, lifting a player and pushing them down with head/shoulders first towards the ground (spearing, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear_tackle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear_tackle) is a red-card offence.
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      > Many NFL positions can optimise for muscle mass without worrying about stamina and sustained speed. Not just mass. What I often hear NFL athletes and trainers talk about maximizing "explosion" in their movements.
- 9y ago
mattmanser 9y ago
In the UK we have rugby, a similar sport without all the armour. While there is a problem with concussions[1], it's nowhere near the scale of American Handball. [1]https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25182-rugby-players-warned-of-long-term-brain-injury-risks/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25182-rugby-players-w...
- Y_Y 9y ago
  I think you know that rugby is played and known worldwide (even in the US), and that football refers to the fact that the players are on foot and in fact rugby, soccer and American football all share a common ancestor.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    > football refers to the fact that the players are on foot Really? As opposed to what? Polo? Quidditch? Beer pong?

by Pxtl 9y ago

rm_-rf_slash 9y ago

American football is also obsessively measured. The difference of a few yards at any point in time can be the difference of a game. Players are also obsessively measured for their performance, so every second counts towards a professional player's career - and their compensation. Players are highly incentivized to "give it their all", and that's how people end up getting injured or receive massive head trauma. Hockey can be just as violent, but it's a much more fluid sport, so the pressure isn't on as much for the extra exceptional effort.

gotthemwmds 9y ago
s/difference of a few yards/difference of 1 yard/ signed, this totally not still upset Seahawks fan. (re: 2015 Superbowl)
geebee 9y ago
I don't understand Rugby, Australian rules, or Gaelic football especially well (or US football for that matter, though I've watched it casually over the years), but my understanding is that tacking in these sports has a different purpose and that tackling technique reflects this. You may be on to something with you comment about yards - in American football, it can even be a game of inches. As a result, tackling isn't a way to halt play or stop someone, or to transition during flow of play - you need to essentially completely halt that person's forward movement without even giving an inch. I've thought this may be why American football has more of the full body collision, where two (very large and powerfully built) men collide at high velocity almost horizontal to the earth. They're trying to gain as little as a few inches in the collision. I've heard complaints from Australian rules players who come to the US about tackling - that the way US players have learned to tackle doesn't have much strategic value and greatly increases the possibility of injury, buy they continue to tackle this way when they join Australian rules leagues. That's what I've heard and thought about, I do want to be clear that I don't know too much about all this - what I've written is more of a question in case someone in the know could weigh in.
- Joky 9y ago
  Another difference on tackling in Rugby: you can only tackle the ball carrier.
  - nervousvarun 9y ago
    Not sure what you're saying here...are you equating blocking and tackling? In American football you also may only tackle the ball carrier. You can initiate contact other guys (usually in the form of blocking), and that can be very violent at times...but I don't think there's a scenario where you can tackle someone without the ball (and it not be called for a penalty).
    - Jeremy1026 9y ago
      In rugby there is no blocking. The only time non-ball carriers come into contact with the opposing team is during a scrum or accidental collision (which are quite rare).
      - jamesblonde 9y ago
        Or a ruck - clearing out the ruck, it's allowed there. Or a catch and drive in the lineout. But yes, the contact in these situations is more pushing than collisions.
        AOsborn 9y ago
        Yes. Far less physical however. You can 'join' a ruck, but not tackle full steam, let alone a shoulder charge or direct hit.
      - phillc73 9y ago
        Or in Rugby Union, during a ruck or maul. The main difference in tackling technique between American Football and both codes of Rugby is use of the arms. In Rugby the arms must be used to tackle the opposing player. A shoulder charge, with no arms used, is illegal and may result in expulsion from the game. In a recent New Zealand vs British and Irish Lions game, NZ player Sonny Bill Williams was given a red card and sent from the pitch for this exact offence. The other main points to note are that the opposing player can only be tackled below shoulder level and, as you've pointed out, in open play only the ball carrying may be tackled (or blocked).
notahacker 9y ago
The other big difference is what's obsessively measured. A few yards makes a huge difference in rugby, and players are certainly highly incentivised to give it their all, but even for the battering ram-type players, their ability to help the team actually get the ball across the gain line is a function of the stamina and mobility to get around the pitch for multiple phases of play, complex situational awareness and some degree of ball handling skills, not just the ability to block off the man directly in front of them for a few plays. Not to mention rugby's increasingly strictly applied and penalised rules on what is and isn't a legal tackle which mean that a player who doesn't tackle in a relatively safe manner will be a liability to their teammates as well as themselves
bennettfeely 9y ago
What? There are just five men on the ice for a team in hockey, there's arguably more pressure for each individual player to "give it their all" at any one moment than in football where there's 11 men on the field. As someone lucky to be from Pittsburgh where we have both the Penguins and Steelers consistently being the top teams in the NHL and NFL respectively, there is no shortage of serious brain trauma in the NHL. Just ask Sidney Crosby.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

I think the rules could get reworked to make it less dangerous for brain injury. Take a cue from Australian Rules Football: remove all padding and make high tackles that endanger the head illegal.

mrspeaker 9y ago
Great idea! Less head injuries, but still a hard-hittin' sport https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1aU0hz5Tf8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1aU0hz5Tf8
- bglazer 9y ago
  Virtually every example of a "big hit" in that video ends with the person who got hit showing the fencing response (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fencing_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fencing_response). That body pose indicates a pretty severe concussion. In fact, the most popular video on YouTube about the fencing response has a shocking amount of overlap with the "big hits" video you shared. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlXjwAlOflA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlXjwAlOflA Frankly, your video was kind of hard to watch. It's basically 3 minutes of people getting their brains rattled in their skulls.
  - mrspeaker 9y ago
    That's true! I didn't think about it because it was a collection of "rare" events - hitting above the shoulders is not a valid tackle. Usually won't get these hits in a game. But still, obviously it certainly exists, and I'm sure there is a lot of head trauma every year.
- kenjackson 9y ago
  I have never seen this video. I always had heard that without the gear that rugby was less brutal than football -- but seriously I don't know. Those hits looked devastating... I could not watch that sport.
  - 9y ago

perfectstorm 9y ago

field hockey is not as violent as ice hockey and they could implement the same rules over. I believe Rugby too is not as violent as American Football but I guess less exciting ? (I don't watch either so don't know).

phillc73 9y ago
I think Rugby Union is more interesting than American Football (in my biased opinion), because the ball is in play for a lot longer and the game has better momentum. Then again, many Rugby Union vs Rugby League debates involve the criticism of Union that it is too stop-start. There is certainly a growing awareness of head injuries in Union and League at all levels. Players which show any sign of head trauma are (should be) immediately removed from the field for a 10 minute evaluation. However, having played Union for nearly 20 years (from the age of 14), I can attest to the fact that there are many occasions where a head clash occurs which doesn't result in concussion, but still can't be very healthy. Besides head injuries, I've required an ACL operation due to Rugby injury. My shoulders and back are also in pretty bad shape. I now have a young son and am really trying to steer him towards cricket rather than Rugby.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  Rugby has gone through periods of being a boring game and has had constant rule changes to try and make it more interesting, some of which significantly changed the nature of the game. The period of constant scrums was an especially dull period, as was the rolling mauls period. I vaguely remember a period of constant punts from each side down the field. I haven't kept up to date with Rugby, but google seems to suggest boring rolling mauls are back. As an Englishman, I still have to say cricket is one of the most boring sports to play, with only 3 players in a team of 22 doing anything even vaguely interesting at any one time (batter, bowler, wicket keeper, 9 other players are literally sitting doing nothing and 9 others are standing around). It's less a sport and more an excuse to lounge around. For all it's faults with prima-donnas, football is one of the most engaging team sports with much less risk of injury than rugby or ball-in-the-face field hockey.

jonny_eh 9y ago

Or even better, change it to flag football

Waterluvian 9y ago

Hockey can be a beautiful game of finesse, speed, and precision. It could absolutely be re-worked. Football is fundamentally flawed. Many positions exist entirely because it's rough and violent. Players who never touch the football in a well played game.

planteen 9y ago
Football can also be played with flags or where players are not tackled by saying the play is over when momentum is stopped. Countless intramural and pickup games are played like this every day. And you still have an offensive line in setup, depending on the number of players.
- EpicEng 9y ago
  Aaaaand viewership drops 90%.
icelancer 9y ago
>>Hockey can be a beautiful game of finesse, speed, and precision. It could absolutely be re-worked. Indeed. Olympic hockey is a perfect example of a step in that direction, and one of the greatest versions of the game in existence.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  Watching the Canadian national hockey team is one of the highlights of the Winter Olympics. The US team would be better if it had access to all those kids wasting their athletic potential on the worst sport in the world--football--and the second-worst sport in the world--soccer. If it ditched the requirement that the game always be played on ice, the skill level of hockey in the US could be comparable to its basketball. All those high school football stadiums could get some asphalt surface, chainlink fencing to stand in for the glass, and a few sets of sticks and inline skates, and we could all watch hockey on Friday nights instead of kids knocking their skulls together.
  - 9y ago

EpicEng 9y ago

>Hockey has the advantage that the sport could we reworked into something less violent. Hockey could survive a change to the rules that would reduce blows to the head. Could it? I wonder how many people would continue to watch hockey if fights weren't essentially sanctioned as a part of the game. I imagine only the diehards as it's not the most entertaining sport in the world...

neaden 9y ago
I mean, only about a third of hockey games have a fight, and usually it's not that dramatic. Part of the issue though is that fights are partly for players to enforce unwritten rules about sportsmanship, so if you got rid of fights there is some bad conduct that might increase that could also be dangerous.
- tblair 9y ago
  The answer for the bad conduct is suspensions, but the PA fights hard to keep them toothless. I don't understand why they want to defend their member giving dirty hits instead of the one receiving them, but it certainly seems that way to me.
pkulak 9y ago
Who really likes the fights, though? I don't know anyone who does. They are more boring than commercials. I don't think it's the fights though. They're mostly just hugging. I think the checks are what do the damage.
bernardom 9y ago
College hockey has no fights and is awesome to watch. (Go Red!)
gertef 9y ago
https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/hockey-fights-are-going-away-as-necessity-dwindles/ https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/hockey-fights-are-going-a...
- 9y ago

hota_mazi 9y ago

> Football is such an intrinsically contact sport that I don't think a safer game would even be recognizable. And yet, rubgy and Australian football have just as much contact and do not suffer from an endemic injury problem. Maybe something related to the padding?

dizzystar 9y ago
Here's a bit where they measured the force of rugby -vs- football tackles. Football is 3 times harder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7tGY-VDx3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7tGY-VDx3o Don't have much commentary on the subject and just wanted to share the vid. I'd only think that a difference like that can't really be resolved to padding.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  It's a pretty unfair comparison, though I'd expect it's largely representative. A rugby union player has to run around the pitch for 2 bouts of 40 minutes [about 40 minutes of 'ball in play' time]. According to this article - https://qz.com/150577/an-average-nfl-game-more-than-100-commercials-and-just-11-minutes-of-play/ https://qz.com/150577/an-average-nfl-game-more-than-100-comm... - the average NFL match is 11 minutes of action, in [average] 4s bursts, over a 3+ hour period. Many NFL positions can optimise for muscle mass without worrying about stamina and sustained speed. FWIW the measured tackle and at least one footage tackle [8mins 26s] in your linked video - https://youtu.be/TSc_Gxq1two https://youtu.be/TSc_Gxq1two - look illegal to me, lifting a player and pushing them down with head/shoulders first towards the ground (spearing, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear_tackle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear_tackle) is a red-card offence.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    > Many NFL positions can optimise for muscle mass without worrying about stamina and sustained speed. Not just mass. What I often hear NFL athletes and trainers talk about maximizing "explosion" in their movements.
9y ago

mattmanser 9y ago

In the UK we have rugby, a similar sport without all the armour. While there is a problem with concussions[1], it's nowhere near the scale of American Handball. [1]https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25182-rugby-players-warned-of-long-term-brain-injury-risks/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25182-rugby-players-w...

Y_Y 9y ago
I think you know that rugby is played and known worldwide (even in the US), and that football refers to the fact that the players are on foot and in fact rugby, soccer and American football all share a common ancestor.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > football refers to the fact that the players are on foot Really? As opposed to what? Polo? Quidditch? Beer pong?