Hockey Vs. Football 2: Death Match

In 2007, hockey and football went to battle to determine which could claim the title of World's Greatest Sport. After bloody competition in several categories, hockey narrowly defeated football. Football has not forgotten its loss, and for the past four years it has nursed a nasty grudge while it prepared to fight hockey again.

You are witness to the final bout between two titans of sport. Each competitor has trained hard, revisiting its mistakes in the categories that it lost and preparing for brand new competitive categories. Each competitor has vowed to make this the last battle, even if dying in the process.

Physical Skill
The truth hasn't changed: out of all real sports, hockey and football require the most physical skill. Football players must be strong, nimble, and quick. Massive linemen must possess the power of locomotives in order to resist the battering charges of their counterparts, yet fast enough to beat their running back to the hole so as to annihilate a linebacker. Receivers must be graceful and flexible to contort themselves in all directions to make a catch or get their feet inbounds, but they also must combine both power and speed to absorb brutal hits, break tackles, or race away from defenders. A high threshold for pain and an incredible amount of endurance are battle necessities. How else could teams sustain 90-yard drives or players pull themselves from the turf after suffering a massive shot to chest or head?

But there's still the ice factor. Reducing your ability to grip the ground to whatever a thin blade of metal on ice will get you, doesn't seem like a recipe for speed and agility. Yet hockey players make some unbelievable athletic movements while traveling on skates at high speeds. The ability of a Crosby to stop, start, turn, and jump would rival that of an Adrian Peterson if it weren't for the ice beneath his feet. The ice means everything. It's slick and unforgiving. It simply demands more physical talent.

Hockey players have to make plays while getting pushed, forearmed, jostled, and tripped. You can do everything short of murdering a hockey player to stop him. Football is more tightly governed, especially when it comes to the passing game. In the drive to increase scoring, football tied its own hands behind its back. The defense can't do much to mess up a receiver's timing or route.

And we can't forget the fact that in hockey, at some point, someone is bound to put his fist in your face unless you do it first.

Finally, as one commenter to the first article pointed out, a hockey player could more easily take off the skates and play football to a higher degree than most football players could strap on the skates and play hockey.
EDGE: HOCKEY

Pain
I'm not changing anything. Hockey wins the all-around pain factor. Football wins the frequency of pain factor.
EDGE: Even

Mental Skill
While commenters to the first article pointed out that hockey players, especially goalies, must quickly process large amounts of information in order to successfully execute their jobs, I still give the edge to football. The average play in football last approximately 4-7 seconds. The amount of information that a football player has to process is massive and ever-changing. QBs must check up to five receivers in that small window of time. Defenses must know what the offense is likely to do in almost every situation. All of this has to happen under the constant threat that you could suffer a painful and unforeseen hit at any moment. I don't see how hockey can win here.
EDGE: FOOTBALL

Single Game/Season
It'll be hard to judge this category if the new NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement raises the season from 16 to 18 games. Hockey suffers because it's season of 80-plus games means that a losing streak doesn't ruin you. Drop 2 or 3 games that you should have won in football and you're likely playing golf in January while your colleagues on other teams are fighting toward the Lombardi trophy. Football will probably still hold the edge if it moves to an 18-game season, but the league will do so at its own peril. Rosters will be expanded, meaning that a bunch of players who previously couldn't make the team will now have large roles. Injuries will pile up. This is especially problematic if the QB goes down. More often than not, a team missing its starting QB will lose. Despite the potential watered-down product, each football game is almost a must-win.
EDGE: FOOTBALL

Overtime
Football is starting to get the idea. They altered their playoff overtime format, but the format for the regular season still sucks.
EDGE: HOCKEY

Playoffs
Hockey wins, easily. Football has playoff rivalries between teams that have developed over several years. Hockey has that, too. It also has rivalries that develop within two games of a seven-game series. Beautiful.
EDGE: HOCKEY

Highlights
I'm changing my tune on this one. Football has some sweet highlights, but too often your eyes are drawn to the feats of one individual. Don't get me wrong. Watching someone like Peyton Hillis use his knee to bust the jaw of a linebacker is awesome stuff. But it minimizes the actions of everyone else on the field. Yes, there is a certain beauty to watching linemen open up a hole for the back or the defensive front seven confuse and disrupt even the best laid offensive plan, but a hockey highlight is more frequently the result of several "must-happen-or-there-is-no-highlight" moves that are perfectly choreographed. You can see the highlight developing before it even happens. How can you beat that?
EDGE: HOCKEY

Fans
New category here, but it's been a pet peeve of mine for years. Football fans are really starting to suck. Now, I know that several factors play into this. For one, shorter seasons allow NFL clubs to drive up ticket prices, which exclude the real hard-nosed football fans from attending, or getting very close to the field when they do. This leaves the stadiums packed with a bunch of fair weather, dockers-wearing, wine-sipping idiots who leave at the first sign of defeat. Hockey has rowdies--the guys standing up and slamming on the glass, those who chant "Sieve!" and "[Insert opponent's name here], "You Suck!", those who hurl hats, octopus, and anything else on the ice, those who cheer while two men beat the teeth out of each other. Come on, football, you've got nothing like it.
EDGE: HOCKEY

Babes
Football abounds in babes. Don't believe me? Two words: Kim Kardashian. She has yet to date a hockey player. Now, hockey players get their fair share of hot women, too, but come on...Kim Kardashian! Fine, that doesn't do it for you? One more word: cheerleaders. 'Nuff said.
EDGE: FOOTBALL

It's official. Hockey is jumping around like a maniac while the bloody, lifeless body of Football lies crumpled outside the ring. Why is football still more popular than hockey? Marketing, plain and simple. The NFL has done a much better job of sellling its product. But spend some time with hockey and you'll see what you've been missing.