Manliest Sport

I believe Ice Hockey is the manliest sport. I played hockey for a long time growing up and stopped playing just after getting into high school and believe that the true manliness of ice hockey isn’t what everybody sees. While the physicality of the game is extremely demanding and shows true “manliness”, I believe the manliest part of the sport is what I have seen and what I know goes on in the locker room. Growing up in a hockey locker room, I have seen others and personally been the point of criticism for not being macho enough. It is an interesting place where young boys are left alone before and after playing a physically demanding game. Especially through puberty, young boys are able to analyze and ridicule others for not being manly enough. As we got older, the words only got sharper and the physicality on the ice carried over to the locker room. I have spent time at hockey camps where you weren’t accepted until you had knocked somebody out in a locker room “helmet boxing” fight. The sport grooms boys who take pleasure in showing their dominance and pushing down any idea of pain. This is why you see the best of the best in the NHL be willing to take a puck flying 100 MPH to the face in order to stop a goal. That player goes to the bench, gets a pat on the back, gets stitches while on the bench, and makes it back on the ice for his next shift. Hockey players are extremely tolerant to pain because there is no other way to play the sport growing up. The reason Ice Hockey is the manliest sport is because it teaches boys, before they even hit puberty, that they have to be manly and take pain in order to be accepted. The players that make it to the NHL are the ones that have made it through these hyper masculine locker rooms and have been groomed to be the manliest possible version of themselves in order to get out and get hit and take shots 3 nights a week.