intedomine said:
Basketball might be played globally, but the only league in the world people give a toss about is the NBA.
Hockey is global, but no one (unfortunately, because I like hockey) gives a rats about it.
Cricket is certainly not as huge a commercial sport, but a market of 1.1 billions is a market not to be sneezed at.
tell the eastern europeans that the only basketball they care about is the NBA. i do remember you coming into the basketball thread when the greeks beat the US and whoopin' it up. you seemed to care, then.
intedomine said:
Holy crap, are we talking about Ice Hockey???
That's not even real hockey!
Nothing against Wayne Gretzky (his stats seem impressive) or ice hockey as a sport, but surely in our quest to find the greatest sportsperson of all time we have to consider some of the elite superstars of other sports such as tchoukball, underwater rugby and sitting volleyball for example.
Eddie Keher was a superstar in the Gaelic game of Hurling...maybe he is the greatest sportsperson of all time?
Can anyone provide a link to a comparions of Gretzky's stats with other elite Ice Hockey players in history? I wanna see how his stats compare.
i suppose by "real hockey" you're speaking of field hockey, which is a sport played by women in skirts in north america.
ice hockey isn't even that big in the US (so considernig it's not a huge sport in the United States and Gretzky is Canadians, you can like the sport now, right?).
field hockey has been an olympic sport for exactly 4 more olympiads than ice hockey. wooooooo.
as for wayne gretzky and his dominance of the sport... here are the only stats you need.
All Time NHL Point Leaders (points = goals & assists combined)
Player - Total Games Played - Total Points
1. Wayne Gretzky - 1487 games played - 2857 points
2. Mark Messier - 1756 games played - 1887 points
3. Gordie Howe - 1767 games played - 1850 points
gretzky has 1,000+ more points in 300 fewer games than #2 on the list.
if you need more, i present this.
2005-2006 Season 100 Point Scorers (nation of birth)
1. Joe Thorton - 125 points (canada)
2. Jaromir Jagar - 123 points (czechoslovakia)
3. Alexander Ovechkin - 106 points (ussr)
4. Dany Heatley - 104 points (west germany)
5. Daniel Alfredsson - 103 points (sweden)
6. Sidney Crosby - 102 points (canada)
7. Eric Staal - 100 points (canada)
gretzky scored over 100 points in a season 14 times. he scored more points than last year's point leader (in a season where scoring was considered to be up) 13 times in his career. he scored over 200 points in a single season 4 times. no other player in the history of the NHL has scored 200 points in a season besides gretzky.
i hope that proves to you that
a) he dominated his sport like no other player in the history of the sport
b) the sport is most certainly an international one.