text: why has (ice) hockey never taken off in america?? ice hockey has everything. it combines the very best skills of all other sports: speed, agility, hand-eye coordination, quick-thinking, brute strength, stamina.  also, it is the only team sport with no out-of-bounds area to run to. if a player's coming at you, you either get out of the way or you're nailed into the boards. it's also the only team sport where players regularily fight, which builds excitement. it's also an incredibly fast game with relatively few whistles and play stopages (compared to the nfl, for example).  you'd think that with all this excitement, ice hockey would be immensely popular in the u.s. but with the exception of a few places in america (minnesota, new york state, michigan, north dakota, wisconsin) it is considered to be an obscure sport with not a lot of fanfare.  why do you think this is? 1.  college and high school football are huge. 2.  college and high school basketball are big. 3.  high school and minor league baseball are popular. 4.  college and minor league hockey are not huge.  most high schools do not have hockey programs.  kids do not grow up playing hockey at an amateur level in the us.     it makes all the difference.  hockey needs to be happy to be at the level of popularity it has.  it can continue to be very big in canada and northeastern cities, and selected other cities where there has been movement of people from colder climates (example: dallas, which has lots of cold climate transplants who know hockey).