America has four main sports: baseball, basketball, football, and hockey. Hockey is the least watched sport out of those four and that should not be the case. Hockey is fast paced, intense, and keeps you on the edge of your seat .Imagine that there’s five minutes in the third period and your team is up by three. Someone shoots a slap shot from 30 feet out at 100 mph that gets deflected and goes in. Bam now you’re up by two. One bad pass, mishandle, or deflection and the other team is back in the game. Now you’re in the other team’s zone but one mis pass and the other teams on a breakaway. Bam! now you’re only up by one with 2 minutes to go. Finally the other team pulls their goalie for an offensive player so there’s no one defending the goal. It’s a five on six and you’re on the edge of your seat. The other team has chance after chance to tie it up but your goalie saves every attempt. You now need to detox from stress for a week. This is the night to night excitement that a Hockey game has. So why isn’t hockey the most watched sport in America? Here’s why it should be. 

One of the reasons hockey is so fun to watch is because it is so fast paced. There are no breaks and each player gets around a two minute shift before they’re off. Players skate at around 20 mph so they move up and down the rink quickly. This makes the game more interesting because all it takes is one deflection, one bad pass, or one good shot to score a goal. With this fast pace, there is little time for TV time outs, and the game just doesn’t have that many breaks by design. You get at least three minutes of play before a play ends. Instead of other sports you might only get ten seconds or even 1 second before a play is over. This fast pace engages you more and gets you more interested and entertained. 

Everything about hockey is intense. From the fans, to the fights, to the game itself. You don’t know the atmosphere of a hockey game until you go to one. The atmosphere of a hockey game is intense. There’s a ferocity to how the game is played that keeps you on the edge. Hockey is just the kind of sport that makes you go “ooh!” All the time. 

If I could describe hockey in one word it would be like a razor’s edge. If you call football a game of inches then hockey is a game of centimeters. With the combination of the speed of the game and how close every shot is to going in there’s nothing more razor’s edge than hockey. Imagine a puck the density of a baseball flying at you 90 mph and there are four guys in front of you. Two of them are purposefully trying to get in your sightline of the puck and deflect it. That is the reality for goaltenders all around the national league. So imagine the skill they have to only let in three goals per night. This is one example of how hockey is so razor’s edge, the game is never over til it’s over. One tip, one deflection, and bam! The game is going to overtime. As a fan, one of the most nerve racking times of the game is when your team is up one goal and it’s the very end of the game. The other team pulls their goalie (the goalie goes to the bench ) for a regular player and they just all out attack on the other team’s defense. 

Hockey has everything you want while watching a sport. People who don’t like sports like watching Hockey because it’s simply so entertaining. Watching hockey is like watching an interactive play. It brings out emotion even though you’re not doing anything.  So hopefully if you’re not watching Hockey you now know why you should.