Unlike most of your ESPN rankings type lists you’re not going to need to sift through ads nor pay to subscribe to this in order to get my opinion on what is the hardest sport. That’s because the answer to me is hockey. They’re running on knives, hitting a black saucer while the lights are insanely bright on a frozen surface. Also, I should note I did not play hockey but have watched a lot to form this opinion.
First thing you have to do is be able to skate because if you can’t do that, then you can’t play. Next up is you need to be able to skate backwards. You think that would be part of my first one but nope not at all. Next is the hand eye, every single person needs to have the hand eye of a NFL WR or NBA PG with a stick to shoot / pass well.
Also, I’m not really ranking them in order after saying hockey is the hardest. I am just going to talk about why. So bow out or enjoy the read.
Let all of that sit in for a second and really try to tell me another sport. Sure - basketball requires the most athleticism that almost goes without question. They also have the best athletes professionally of almost all major sports. But you’ve also seen a fat guy dominate a pick up run by just playing bully ball in the paint or chucking threes.
Now the funniest thing about this - you ever see hockey guys try to play basketball. Like watching a lion try to use a fork to eat a steak. They’re cooked.
Football is a gladiator sport, it recapitulates war and strategy so we don’t have to romanticize war as their CTE shows us there are things worse than PTSD. But, hockey is far and beyond the hardest sport.
Some people are going to come out of the woodwork and toss in some other not as popular sports. The next answer I will entertain is rugby. It combines the pace of basketball with the field size and running of soccer, while being the same level if not more physical than football. I don’t know about you but I remember the RocketPower episode where the first thing they did was tape their ears and I was like “yeah not playing that”.
Next are lacrosse and baseball. Both are insanely hard in their own right. Baseball is hard for two reasons; hitting is considered one of the hardest things to do in all of sports and the pace of play. Pace is actually a major factor while also being what makes it hard and fun to watch; you need to be ready at any moment for something big to happen.
Out of all these I’m actually most qualified to talk about lacrosse and it’s a difficult sport don’t get me wrong. But the stick being above your waist and running on grass/turf sport lessens its difficulty compared to hockey. It’s really fun, fast paced, and being a goalie is why I’m psychotic enough to write something like this and can confidently say it’s safely outside of the top spot in terms of difficulty but should be in the top 3-5 in terms of fun. I’ve been fortunate to not have to play with the standard lacrosse douches as teammates because I see why people hate it but if y’all actually played it with good people you’d wonder why it’s not bigger.
Crooked Arrows also did more harm for the sport than good but that’s a different story.
Tennis is also really hard but I don’t know how to describe it but we all just know it’s just not in this conversation. Nothing against tennis players. Moving onward and upward.
I haven’t mentioned soccer (yes it’s football for anyone not in the USA reading this). It’s a difficult game don’t get me wrong - but not the hardest and its ability to be played globally and unite the world is why if it was the hardest, that would kind of suck. So it sits perfectly where it needs to be and we can all enjoy it for what it is, it is what it is and if you don’t like reading that well too bad.
Last but not least, and the dark horse argument I think some of readers were waiting for is golf.
Golf for me can go anywhere from #2 in terms of being hard to falling out of the top 5. Golf is so fucking hard dude. So few people are actually really good at it / actually know what they’re doing. I have no issue where you put golf on your list it’s just so hard to gauge a game that’s really against yourself. Like even tennis you play somebody else. Regardless of how you view match play I think we all can agree golf is mental game against yourself and how mad or how few fucks you’re giving that day.
Now half the world could jump down my throat and pull up cricket not being mentioned. But the half of the world that knows how cricket is even played is not reading this. Thanks for your time and see you next time folks.