Are hockey players the toughest professional sports players?

Question

I think so. I remember watching a BlueJackets player take a puck to their eye in pre-game warm ups. He got stitches and was on the ice for opening face off. Do you think a pro baseball or football player would start after receiving stitches to their head or play bruised. The "kid" skated with a broken foot the last month of last season. Thinner pads than football players, getting smashed into the boards. If that is not tough, I don't know what is.

Answer 1

Very high pain tolerance, no question.When you talk about playing with staples in your forehead, 50 stitches keeping your bottom lip together or with recently shattered chicklets, no other pro athlete can touch a hockey player.

It's part of the hockey credo to post. If you're breathing and you can get your skates on, you're playing. Shoot, even I played with a broken jaw once and I don't recall being promised a nickel to do so. Hmmm, come to think of it, maybe we're all just too dumb to know any better. lol

Answer 2

You know, when I first read your question my answer was going to start out like this ...
"I am def. a hockey girl, but some of the hits they take in football make me wonder if they have to be tougher (even though it pains me to say that) ..."

But after reading your details ...
Hell yeah! I've been watching some compilations of big hits on youtube and holy crap! They are skating faster than other sports players can run, so the impact is greater to begin with. No other sports players get nailed between a player and a pane of glass. And so may players do play through injuries. Connolly played the rest of the game the other night after pulling his obliques, Spacek played with a still injured shoulder, for crying out loud ... Malarchuk came back a week and a half after having his juglar severed!
You're right, no football player or baseball player (please, I like baseball OK, but they do not play a "dangerous" sport) would be likely to do that!
(Sorry about the generalizations, I'm sure there are other sports players who have come back after/during injuries, so please no hate mail! I just think hockey players do it much more often!)

Answer 3

I would love to give you an emphatic yes. However, there is one story that makes me have to say no.

Earlier this year, there was an Australian rules football game in which there was a cataclysmic collision and one of the players lost a tooth.

You may be asking yourself "So what, hockey players lose teeth all the time jackhole" but I have only given you have the story. The player that gave the hit that knocked the other guys tooth out was having chronic headaches and vision problems but continued to play until it became to excrutiating. The doctors decided to get a skull x-ray thinking it was probably a skull fracture. Alas it was not. The other guys tooth was embedded in his SKULL. You gotta admit that is pretty tough.

Answer 4

Hockey players pretend they aren't hurt. Soccer players pretend they are. Hitting is legal in hockey. You fight in hockey. You face 90 mph minimum 4 pound frozen pucks blasted at you. Steven Stamkos takes a puck in the face and returns to play. Soccer players dive after they're hit. In hockey you're penalized if you pretend you were fouled. Need I say more.

Answer 5

I would think so as far as North American sports go, but overall I would think the Australian Rules Football players or any rugby player might be a little "tougher". Aussie Rules looks like a brutal sport to play, although I do not understand all the rules!

Answer 6

Its on par with Rugby I'd say...

For whoever said MMA, that doesn't really count... I know technically thats a sport (the definition of sport is rather vague), but you're obviously not going to compare something like MMA or Boxing where the actual purpose is to inflict bodily harm on your opponent until he surrenders or you knock him out to a regular sport...

In regards to some of the stories; broken bones are not that bad in terms of pain... I have known people to go weeks on a broken foot, before determining that whatever they had done to themselves was more serious than they thought and chose to see a doctor, only to find out it was broken...

Answer 7

Even though hockey is my favorite sport, Ihave to say that rugby, and a sport in Ireland, I beliee it is called hurling or something like that is tougher. Rugby is basically harder hits then fotball but without pads. And the other sport doesnt even stop a game for an injury, they just let the guy lie there.

Answer 8

I think that soccer players with their silk shorts, perfectly coiffed hair and squeaky clean socks must be the toughest sports players! I mean, it's not like you see them falling down like they were shot every time someone brushes by them!
BTW...I think Sidney Crosby must be a soccer player in disguise, the way he dives every time he's touched!

Answer 9

They are one of the toughest, I think rugby players and MMA fighters are just as tough.

Answer 10

I don't know. That's apples and oranges to me. Research has shown that the average football tackle is about the same as getting into a car accident, and lacrosse players use their sticks to as weapons (high-sticking, cross-checking, using it as a bat, it's all good there).