re: Rate these sports professions based on athleticism; your opinion.

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The thing is, learning to skate isn't hard if someone puts any time into it. Most of the best athletes don't so you are competing only against a certain sample of the population. The fact hockey requires such a specialized skill actually decreases the level of innate athleticism required to play it at an elite level.

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I know. Some people are acting like they are more impressed about rising to the top percentile of Canadians as they are impressed at somebody being in the top percentile of Americans(including our massive African American population).

Lebron James, Kawhi Leonard, Kobe Bryant, D Wade, Westbrook,Wall etc are all much better athletes than their hockey peers. Ridiculous.

I think some of you underestimate the athleticism it takes to play hockey. You have to be a crazy good athlete to be a professional.

Skating requires massive amounts of leg strength and explosiveness. Hockey players train for explosive movements like football and basketball players. Those explosive skaters on ice also possess that explosiveness off ice and have great vertical jumps and are good sprinters.

They also have to be very well conditioned as skating an average 45 second shift is like a sprinter going all out in a 400 meter race. On top of the strength, explosiveness, and endurance you also have to have tremendous hand eye coordination. You think hitting a baseball is hard try deflecting a puck that is shot from the blue line that is moving 95+ mph all the while you are moving and a defender is banging on you. Or one-timing a pass moving about 40 mph for a slapshot.

Moving with the puck, stickhandling, passing tape to tape on a rope, or having soft enough hands to saucer a pass to a teamate all the while rushing down the ice full speed. Serious skill involved in doing all this. Now lets add the speed of the game, players moving at speeds of up to 28 mph, forwards and backwards, there's alot going on out there and play is moving fast. Finally the sport is full contact, so you have guys banging into each other and into the boards at those speeds.

Hockey is definitely at or near the top of the list for athleticism. I'd rank it equal to football players (DBs, WRs, RBs, LBs) and basketball players.

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Here are mine;
1) football
2) baseball
3) basketball
4) tennis
5) NASCAR driver
6)
7)
8)
9) golf

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basketball
football
tennis
baseball
golf
nascar driver

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do you think a tennis player could pick up baseball easier than a baseball player could pick up tennis, even at a novice level?

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Tennis players could pick up baseball easily, yes.

Tennis requires all of the athletic skills baseball requires. Baseball does not require all of the athletic skills tennis requires.

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By a long shot IMHO. A pro tennis player could enter the batting cages and stroke it pretty good, and get in the field and look halfway decent. A baseball player is going to look very poor when playing tennis for the first time

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actually playing tennis and just hitting in a batting cage are not exactly equal though.

I would disagree. There is a reason tennis is played recreationally by people of all ages, sexes, and ability.

something as simple(for a normal baseball player) like catching a fly ball would be difficult for someone that has never played baseball. Then even hitting an average fastball? then offspeed stuff? making an accurate throw on defense across the diamond?

the surface area of a tennis racket is a lot bigger than a baseball bat.

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actually playing tennis and just hitting in a batting cage are not exactly equal though.

I would disagree. There is a reason tennis is played recreationally by people of all ages, sexes, and ability.

something as simple(for a normal baseball player) like catching a fly ball would be difficult for someone that has never played baseball. Then even hitting an average fastball? then offspeed stuff? making an accurate throw on defense across the diamond?

the surface area of a tennis racket is a lot bigger than a baseball bat

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A pro tennis player would be able to track a fly ball with complete ease. They would also be able to be pretty damn good in the batters box due to their hand eye coordination. I have seen people play tennis for the first time, they are completely lost, even great athletes

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well yea, they can prob hit in a batting cage. But off real life pitching? no way.

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And a baseball player would look like a quad against a real life tennis player

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no way in hell major league fly balls are a whole different animal.

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I just disagree. No way to really prove either of our points though, just good healthy discussion

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More moving parts

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I completely disgree with this. Baseball may have the one individual thing that is harder, but in no way does it have more moving parts than tennis

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ut I think your average MLB infielder/outfielder does more amazing things on average than your 20-50 ATP guy.

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I would say pretty comparable in this category

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Baseball may have the one individual thing that is harder, but in no way does it have more moving parts than tennis

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it easily does when you consider the different factors at the plate and in the field. Many more variables in baseball.

in tennis alone you're facing 1 player, in a confined boundary, playing off 1 serve. The variables can only extend so far.