I've never really understood the appeal of hockey. I mean don't get me wrong, it's far from the worst sport out there, it's certainly pretty entertaining to watch as there's never lack of something happening. Still.......every time I see it I can't help but think "this is just a bunch of dudes who where too pussy to become boxers or fighters, but still wanted a profession that allows them to constantly beat the shit out of each other"

You clearly no nothing about it.  it's not about fighting, it's a skill game.  It's very much like soccer, excepet you do need to be tougher to play it because you will take contanct and fight through scrums.  It perhaps takes more skill than any other activity, combining speed, strength, reflexes, quick decsision making, hand co-ordination, balance and the intelligience to anticipate plays and make the correct one.  People play it to score goals or to stop them, and to compete to win.  Fighing has almost nothing to do with it.

Love me some playoff hockey :)

Also some of the decisions the Nhl makes are pretty stupid, but as to that one reason, I'm not sure. My parents have a hard time tracking the puck, which for me was a problem for like 2 games, Max. Too fast maybe, or the appeal is just not there.

I like it more compared to American football because it's a lot faster, less rules, far less commercials (the benefits of not being as popular), and just the overall game.

OT: It's less popular because other sports already have a cultural hold. It's the same with soccer. The rest of the world loves soccer (and to a lesser extent, hockey), but in the US baseball and football really are the games that are the centers of schools and communities. It's the quarterback that gets the homecoming queen, not the captain of the hockey team. In the northern states hockey has more of a hold, but in the south it's tougher to change culture. And that's without even considering NASCAR.

The arguments over hard to watch on TV are over-stated. That said, low-def made pucks tough for some to see, but HDTV has changed that and I think that - and NBC's consistent coverage of the NHL - are raising TV interest in the sport.

If you compare it to say, American football, it's not that expensive. 

But yeah, a lot more games, puck tracking, and overall less accesability make it less popular. 

No, I really don't. Won't act like I do. Just watch the occasional game with a friend who's way into hockey. And even if it may not be representative of hockey as a whole, all that ever seems to happen in the games I've seen is the players constantly getting into it, breaking up the actual playing every other minute.

Don't even get me started on soccer lol. Most boring sport in the world

Americans hate everything we're not the best at. Simple as that.

Because a good amount of hockey players aren't even from America playing on American teams. Our popular pro sports are the ones that majority of American High Schools and Universities have too.

Actually, thank the Maple Leafs for that!

i think american's like the instant gratification and sports like hockey and soccer don't give them that. It could be a whole game and no one scores.

As for Basketball, not sure why that still gets all the attention and how they pay their players so much, that sport has been loosing money like crazy for a while now. What is there like 3 teams in the league that actually made a profit or something and the rest lost money. I think it gets talk cause it was huge and the sports guys grew up loving it or played it at the very least in high school.

Could also be high school related. Hockey is not avaialbe at all schools and to play it costs a fair amount of money. The equipment you have to buy is not cheap, meanwhile all other sports in school cost like $50 or $20 when i was in school and you were on the team, all equipment provided. Thus more kids played the other sports, basketball, football, baseball and thus relate to it more.

That's my two cents anyway.