Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

What's the hottest sport for you to watch? I don't mean which one has the least clothing (although that doesn't hurt) or which one has the most ex- and current athletes posing for magazine covers wearing nothing but a soccer ball (Don't search for it, I just made that up.) No, I mean which form of athletic activity makes you stop, stare, and say, "Oh, man. I need more of that!"

For me, it's hockey. Yeah, okay, I know, but hear me out. It's the way a man moves on the ice. When a guy is really booking around a rink, powerful and super fast, and he cuts one of those deep, wide turns that makes a sound like icebergs ripping apart, sending shards of ice skittering in every direction like broken glass, I just have to stare. It's the way he holds himself when he does it, both loose and tight in the same motion, explosive but graceful, all that power released at just the right moment. The horrible potential of death and injury is just millimeters away with every stroke but he glides right between the two with a serene expression. He plays with physics; gravity is his toy. The clincher is how nonchalant he is. He doesn't brace himself for it at all, he almost falls into it. He's done this so many times, it's as natural as a high-five. Watching a strong hockey player coolly dominate the force and friction of two hundred pounds of momentum perched on a single slice of metal sharp enough to decapitate a Velociraptor makes me want to lace up my skates and follow him around the rink. The view is better from there, anyway.

What sport turns you on to watch?

Baby Herc

It's hockey for me too!

Awesome! Are you a skater? In high school, when I was at the rink every week, I had a bit of a crush on one of our school's hockey team members (until I discovered the college team, that is ). Wade was massive, just a beast, who towered over most people, and on skates he was even taller. He was shy so I used to scare the hell out of him (I'm the opposite of shy) but I managed to cajole him into doing silos with me a few times.

Maybe it's a Midwestern term, but I'll bet some of the old fogies in here...ahem...I mean people over 40, remember doing silos on roller skates in the 70's. What you did was face your partner, cross your dominant arm over your lesser one, grab the other person's wrists in a death grip, turn your toes outward, and slowly begin to spin around in a circle like a merry-go-round. You pumped your legs up and down at the knees to accelerate, and always leaned outwards as hard as you could to hold the centrifugal force. If your partner was the same size, you could pull in slowly to achieve terrifying speeds like a set of hurricane balls.

If your partner was Wade, pretty soon you could feel your skates actually lifting off the ground! The centripetal force would hold us in the circular silo shape and his strength would carry me around the circle a few times in the air before I landed again on the ice. We were both crazy strong so we achieved this a couple times; it was one of the few times in life that it paid off for me not to be a tiny little slip of a girl. As a figure skater, I never got dizzy, but it was fun watching Wade wobble and weave as he tried to skate a straight line afterwards. I guess it's just the affect I have on men.

Baby Herc

PS: Here's those forces at work. We probably got the name from the Silly Silo ride at Adventureland Park.