Which sport is more brutal on the players?

I can’t stand football. It is a sport for people with ADD – 7 seconds and then stand around for 40, repeat, repeat. Yeah, the 16/18 games is a joke, too, as they have a week off between matches, and then sometimes two because of bye weeks. I don’t understand how it’s interesting to watch or how anyone makes money from it (only 8/9 home games per year!).

Let the blasting commence.

but I think rugby union is the most. All contact sports have their big injuries, but I think rugby promotes the most overall abuse to the body whether it’s superficial, minor (yet still able to play), debilitating (but not long-term) and long-term.

well ive never played hockey (except roller hockey a little) so I wont say football is more physical and mental but its at least even…the pounding the body takes fucks up the player even later in life..the reason its “7 seconds and then stand around for 40” is that you go all out (except for some lazy DE’s and some WR’s, T.O. Im talking to you)100% and look to take off heads..its also the reason its a short season cuz the players couldnt last more than 16 games plus and playoffs

to counter also..hockey player take a 45 sec shift then get rest in between there shifts..lets say 3 min.s depending ont here importance..plus u got some lazy queens who take shifts off also

mentally since there is only 16 games..your margin for error is smaller and you have to mentally strong on blitz pickups, coverage..learn big playbooks..etc…hockey has some of that type of knowledge necessasity but not as extensive as football

in the end the mental and physicality are equal to me and its the reason i love the 2 sports equally….lots of ass-kicking..lots of stragedy compared to baseball…lets not get into basketball…

At least at certain positions. Running Back, especially. There are guys who literally can’t walk in their late 30’s because they played too long.

Plus, hockey only has 200 lb guys hitting each other, football has 300 lb guys hitting helmet to helmet. I would be willing to bet there are way more long-term, possibly life-threatening injuries in football. I’m not saying hockey isn’t physical, but playing football (at least at the nfl level) is probably one of the worst things you could ever do to your health.

but when it comes to injuries, brutality, wear and tear, etc, the two sports are a wash. I am a great fan of both, and I simply think football packs the punishment of a full hockey season into 16+ games a year.

However, I agree with ang on the fact that the sacbee article is wrong. As a lover of statistics, using an anomaly like Chelios in an argument (which using some theorem I am too lazy to look up is in the top 99.97% of NHL player longevity) is simply unfair. I live less than 7 miles away from our State’s Capital, and I know that the Shark love has NOT spilled up (northeast) here. There is more love for our Monarchs (WNBA) than the Sharks here. I remember calling KHTK’s late night host carmichael dave and calling him out when he blasted the Sharks when KHTK started covering them. I said “don’t blast my favorite sport when senators called your beloved MMA HUMAN COCKFIGHTING”. He promptly hung up on me, and I refuse to buy any services from KHTK’s advertisers.

have their own thoughts on this.

That’s the Aztec game where the losing team was sacraficed. Of the present day sports I’m going to say hockey. For my biomechanical structural comparison research paper (worst class ever by the way), I compare the forces felt by hockey players and those felt by football players and found that the hockey players experienced much more violent collisions on the whole, while football injury rates are higher mostly due to the interaction of the high friction surface the game is played on.