The Hockey News

Sports are like sex: the more action the better. And hockey has the most per game of the five major team sports. Yes, even more than soccer, according to



FIFA. At the 2014 World Cup, the average amount of time the ball was in play was only 57.6 minutes, under two-thirds the length of a game. (Discuss among yourselves how much of that actually constitutes “action.”)

Meanwhile, an NHL game lasts at least a full 60 minutes, and all of it is action. So among the big five, soccer slides in at No. 2 in actual action time, then comes the NBA, at more than three-quarters of an hour, while the



NFL and



MLB are mere minute-men, with fewer than 20 minutes of action per game.



