Hockey Players are Good Athletes
This isn't relevant, I just love this picture.Over at Kings Vision (the multimedia arm of LAKings.com) there are interviews with Dustin Brown and Alex Frolov, discussing what they have been doing to improve their fitness during the off-season. Brownie has been doing a lot of sled runs over at the roller rink at Toyota Sports Complex along with a little muscle building*, while Frolov has been doing a lot of plyometric exercises and joke cracking. It's kind of cool if you are interested in that sort of thing.
*The dude looks pretty built. He was listed at 200 lbs. last year but there's no way he weighs that little this season.
Rod Brind'amour's totally on steroids, right?It's kind of funny when you watch that sort of thing because you kind of forget that hockey players are such good athletes. I tend to think that there's 2 kinds of strength: there's the ability to lift shit and then there's endurance. Hockey players are probably the best fusion between the two, but we never really notice it. We don't notice it because hockey players wear long sleeves (so you don't notice that they're actually ripped) and because skating doesn't look hard. (Also, I think a lot of people assume hockey players aren't good athletes because they're not black, but that's another argument for another day.) I have friends that wonder why hockey players are only out on the ice for 50 seconds at a time and they just refuse to believe that the guys are basically sprinting out there for the half their shift. It's good for us to remember that these guys are great athletes.
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http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills
Have your friends take a look at that next time they think hockey isn't that hard.
I have friends that wonder why hockey players are only out on the ice for 50 seconds at a time and they just refuse to believe that the guys are basically sprinting out there for the half their shift.
My dad is terrible at this. He loves to yell "Tired already?" at hockey players for making line changes all the time.
What's worse is he'll even yell at them when it's not even fatigue that's the issue. Carlyle's a strict line-matcher, of course, and loves to change lines right after a faceoff. My dad doesn't really grasp this notion, and loves to yell at Getzlaf (or somebody) for jumping off the ice quickly for Pahlsson shifts.
So basically, my dad blends in much better with typical ignorant Ducks fans than I do.
I am learning hockey myself as a 30+ person, and, MAN, it is hard. I mean, HARD. It requires all sorts of stuff - speed, endurance, balance, power, flexibility, agility, coordination, dang, you name it. It's taking me a long time to learn and have respect for all hockey players more than ever before.
There was an interesting article on difficulty of different sports on ESPN - Ice Hockey came in second only to Boxing:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills
What's impressive is that hockey requires skills across pretty much every area they defined, including brains to size up and react to situations.
Holy Jesus! A hockey trade!
Should probably quell a bit of that Bulin Wall to L.A. talk, I'd guess. I think the Hawks are probably cap-compliant now.
Does that quiet down the Sundin/Schneider to Montreal talks too?
Hockey is a fast sport.If you aren't paying attention, you end up on your arse.So I imagine you have to be in pretty good shape to be a hockey player.In fact you have to be in great shape to be a decent athlete in any sport, especially professional.
As far as the line changes go, that's probably the thing I find most boring about soccer. They don't substitute guys at all so most of the game features a bunch of guys standing around on the "pitch" for large stretches of the game. That results in very few high-quality scoring chances and 0-0 games that are determined by shootouts. Color me unimpressed.
With hockey you get really fast line changes that put fresh players on the ice who can attack for 0:30 to 1:30 before a new wave of guys take over. That means lots of decent scoring chances - unless of course you're playing the Devils or the Wild.
I tend to think that there's 2 kinds of strength: there's the ability to lift shit and then there's endurance.
From what I've learned so far, you're in good company. Unless I missed something big in my exercise physiology class, that's basically it.
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