I know there are still alot of players but every school I went to didn't and when i asked about it everyone yelled NO HOCKEY TEAM. Just try to explain to me why.
shareIt's not a real sport.
Allowing actual fist fights makes it a joke.
Same reason it's not important in Brazil. Most of the US is not in the polar region
shareSame reason why Football, Formula 1, Rugby, Cricket, Polo, Fencing and other sports are unpopular: They suck at it, so they don't even try and don't like it.
Americans are so stuck in their "We wanna dominate" thinking that they only accept those sports they're good at. Which are Basketball, Baseball and dumbed-down Rugby which should be called Handegg and not Football. There isn't much else americans are useful at.
Also they need local heroes to cheer and get patriotic over and there aren't many good american hockey players around (and the best beats up Taxi Drivers so he's far from being a role-model)
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It really just depends on the area. There are some regions of the US where hockey is absolutely HUGE (Minnesota, Vermont, Michigan, etc) and other places, not so much. Canada has a more widespread love of hockey because its a bigger part of the culture there.
Hockey is not only way more expensive (not only equipment wise, but travel as well), but it takes a particular specialized skill: skating. Football, basketball, soccer, baseball--they involve a lot of running, which most people walking on two feet can do without issue and knew how to do before beginning the sport. Learning how to skate is a HUGE part of playing hockey. If you can't skate, you can't get around on the playing field and you are pretty much sunk.
I think part of it, too, is the lack of the buildup of drama. My wife (a huge SF Giants fan) replays the 2010 and 2012 playoff wins endlessly. I even get sucked in because even though you know the outcome, the drama still builds with each pitch. Even football, which is violence punctuated by committee meetings, allows for the big buildup toward the denouement.
Hockey is more flowing and sudden. You go back and forth awhile and then bang! somebody scores. Aaron Sorkin even made fun of that aspect on The West Wing. No buildup of drama.
Now my wife has two recent titles to savor, and so do I, because I'm a Blackhawks fan, have been since 1970. These last four years have been good to us after very long waits for both of us. You think I don't have recordings of all the playoff wins from both years? Ha! But I only watch the goals being scored. I can honestly say I've never watched Game 6 from last June in its entirety since it was live. But I have watched the replay of the last two minutes literally hundreds of times.
Baseball is paced, and has a particular rhythm, and builds to a climax. Hockey has a better-not-blink-or-you'll-miss-it thing to it. Even the Boston Bruins would agree with me. From what I have heard, BOTH teams took awhile getting over that shock.
It's not widespread popular in the US, true, but it's big in a lot of places. I come from Minnesota, the State of Hockey, where we eat, sleep, and breathe hockey at all levels. (Go Wild). It's pretty popular in some of the New England states. Heck, I'm living in Los Angeles now and while it's definitely not widespread popular there are still a lot of really big hockey fans here.
It's also quite expensive to play here versus in other places, and it's less ingrained into the culture of a lot of states because of the warm climate. You can't play pond hockey in a good portion of the US.
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I work with a lot of Americans in my job and I love hockey, being Canadian originally from Nova Scotia and now living in Toronto (go LEAFS go!), and they apparently cannot follow the puck as it is just too fast for them. I started watching at 4 on a small black and white TV and have never had that issue so maybe eyeballs/brain is just trained better to watch the game? (With HD now should not be an issue.)
That is my 2 cents on the subject - LOL
Because the US is already saturated with other major sports like Baseball, Basketball and Football. So Hockey kind of takes a hit in interest.
In Canada though, it's a whole different thing. Baseball and Basketball are tiny and even though we have the CFL for Football it's not as major as the NFL. Hockey/NHL becomes the main sport people follow, almost religiously in certain places.
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Its growing, but all too slowly. In the mid to late 90s, and early 2000s minor league hockey was really booming in the south. Hate that is collapsed, probably economy tanking, too much expansion, increasing travel costs and piss poor management contributed to that. Hope we see more hockey in the USA, it is an awesome sport.
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