Which sport is the most difficult to master?

Hockey is one of the only sports, along with water polo, that requires you to master a skill set before you can even attempt the sport itself. If you can't skate, you're toast. If you're learning to skate an adult, you probably need a year or two of pure skating classes to get to the level you need to compete with most beginner level players.

You'll never catch up to the guys who've been skating since they were two, and nothing is more embarrassing than eight-year-olds zipping around your knees as you're trying to practice crossovers or hockey stops. But few things are cuter than the four-year-old in full gear chugging his way around the ice.

All that's before you begin to start with the other skills you need.

The thing I struggle with in hockey right now is lifting my shot. I can lift a backhand and the occasional snap shot, but the timing needed for a slap or wrist shot is somehow beyond my body's grasp. Flat puck, flat blade and flat ice leads to Kritter puzzling over the physics of lift.

I will also submit that hockey (along with boxing, probably) is one of the most painful to learn as an adult. It has a built in fall factor that the other sports don't, especially as you learn to skate.

 

Why would you want to lift the puck? It looks pretty, but as any elite hockey player would tell you, the overwhelming majority of goals are scored right along the surface of the ice.

 

Why no credit for those who have mastered jai alai?

 

Because in rec league play the goalies tend to just lay on the ice because most folks can't lift the puck.

I once scored the only goal in a rec league game, not because I was any good at all at the game, but I happened to accidently (on purpose) lift the puck (wasn't allowed per league rules). The goalies had been lying in front of the nets to keep us from scoring.

And plenty of goals are scored by lifting the puck. Do you ever watch hockey?

 

chicky, don't try it. NoddaJunky is the ultimate stud 24 year old who knows at least twice as much as anyone else on this board. Don't take my word for it, he'll tell you himself.