It's a bit of an understatement that the United States is big on sports. Be it baseball, basketball, or football, almost every American student has been on some sort of athletic team or taken lessons at some point during their childhood. Even more so, in the states, "sports" as a concept has taken on a life of its own: it's a billion dollar industry with multiple TV channels and a slew of weekends over the course of a year dedicated to various sporting endeavors.
So how do sports fit into Europe? More specifically, how do sports fit into the United Kingdom?
The biggest sport - in both Europe and the United Kingdom - is clearly football, or soccer as Americans call it. Each country has a national team, and various cities have their own teams as well. London, for example, has four teams that I know of, and near the end of October I went to one of the games.
I saw the Tottenham Hot Spurs play (and defeat) a Greek team at their home stadium. A friend of mine, who loves European football and actually understood what he was doing, organized the trip and booked field-level seats near the center of the pitch. The stadium - being outdoors - was quite cold, and it even started to rain at one point. However the atmosphere was lively - fans jumping out of their seat and screaming at goals or fouls - and the home team dominated play. Though I didn't know the official rules, it was easy enough to follow the action. My friend ended up explaining the rules to a group of us, but I mostly ignored him and focused on watching the game; I chose to apply NHL rules to the football game instead of struggling to digest my friend's diatribe, and for the most part, it served me well.
Hockey is one sport that England does not have, but the rest of Europe - especially the Slavic countries - loves. For me personally, one of the worst aspects of studying in London was the lack of hockey. Though I'm a Californian, my father instilled in me a love for the Philadelphia Flyers and ice hockey, and it kills me that I'm missing the first half of their season.
So when I traveled to Prague immediately following the football game in October, I made sure to catch a hockey match. The team names were all in Czech, so I have no idea who played who, but I do know that the home team won and it was a fantastic game. Since I'm so much more knowledgeable about hockey than I am about football, I can actually detail some differences between NHL hockey and European hockey.
To begin with, European rinks are slightly larger, their goalies are allowed to play the puck from anywhere behind the net, not just within the trapezoid, and offensive players are not allowed to enter the goalie's crease. Moreso, European hockey includes harsher penalties for players who break the rules.
And what do these rules include? No fighting. That's right, hockey lovers, in European hockey, you aren't allowed to fight or even be too physical. Check too hard? You're ejected from the game. Throw a single punch? You may be suspended for several games. As I witnessed in Prague, this creates a completely altered style of hockey. Instead of being physical, players emphasize their finesse and puck-handling skills. They use more fancy, fast passes and less of a forecheck to take the lead. How do I feel about these changes? Well for one thing, it makes it a little more understandable for me to watch players in the NHL - such as Finish Kimmo Timonen or Jaromir Jagr from the Czech Republic - play games so much less physical than American or Canadian born players. In general, however? I think I prefer American hockey. Though the skill with which these Slavic players handle the puck is awe-inspiring, there is a certain level of physicality I’ve come to expect in hockey, and it doesn’t feel right to watch the game without it.
Overall, Europe lacks some of the American sports - such as basketball and football - and it has some sports that we don’t have, like cricket and rugby. To anyone interested in studying abroad, I highly recommend watching some sort of athletic game in your foreign country; it can be really telling in regards to the culture.