Ice Hockey is the National Sport of Canada, and there are many parents that give their boys an ice hockey stick and a pair of skates as early as age 5. They live in the hope that their son will grow up to be an enormous mountain of a man that spends his days speeding about an ice hockey rink, and banging the puck into the back of a goal.
It's doubtful anyone reading this will not know how demanding this sport is. The mere fact that players only spend between 40 to 60 seconds on the ice at any one time is proof enough this sport is not for the faint hearted.
Anyone who has been to a live ice hockey game will know how hard it is to keep up with what's going on (unless they've been watching all their lives). Keeping up with the players who are whizzing about on the ice is hard enough, without having to figure out which member of the team has just scored.
For spectators, this sport is exhilarating and very exciting to watch. This is one of the reasons it's so popular, and of course, there is also plenty of ice to be found in Canada, so finding somewhere to practice isn't a problem. In fact many ice hockey players start learning the game in their own backyards.
So, yes, ice hockey is a great spectator sport simply because it's such a quick game, and there is always plenty of excitement (not to mention the odd bloody nose here and there). My question is, do these guys think about what toll playing this game will take on their bodies? The answer is possibly not.
Playing ice hockey does have its financial rewards for those that play at the top level, but believe me they pay for it later in life. The one part of the body that takes the most battering is the legs, players have immense problems when they get older, and in the most extreme cases, they find it hard to walk. Some players have even been confined to a wheelchair as a result of playing the game regularly.
It's actually very rare for an ice hockey player to escape some sort of knee surgery, and for most of them, they spend hours with a physical therapist after a game to help with their knees and ankles. Skating is an art form in itself, but if you take into account these guys have to be able to not only skate quickly, they also have to be able to turn or stop in the space of a millisecond.
All of this puts a lot of stress on the legs in general, and this is possibly why ice hockey players have to retire at a pretty early age. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. For instance Gordie Howe was famous for playing his last game at the ripe old age of 51 back in 1980, and Chris Chelios comes in at a close second who was 47 when he played his last game.
It's doubtful however, that either of these players managed to escape knee surgery either throughout their careers or after they had retired.
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