About Soccer

Soccer is called football in other countries besides America. Major League Soccer set all-time attendance record for a United States-based professional soccer league game at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on June 16, 1996. That day, 92,216 fans watched the Los Angeles Galaxy win a 3-2 shootout victory over the Tampa Bay Mutiny. His real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, But the soccer world knows him as Pele. A native of Brazil, Pele retired as a player in 1977 but is still considered by many the greatest soccer player who ever lived. Since his retirement, he has been a worldwide ambassador for his sport. Wherever soccer is played, the name of Pele will always be magic. A standard soccer ball is made of leather and is between 27 and 28 inches in circumference. Unlike basketball, young players can use a smaller ball. For kids 8 years old or younger, a ball of 23 to 24 inches in circumference is recommended. For kids 9 to 12, a ball of 25 to 26 inches is often used.

Association football, commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball. It is the world's most popular sport.

The modern game was codified in England following the formation of The Football Association (FA), whose 1863 Laws of the Game created the foundations for the way the sport is played today. Football is governed internationally by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association ("International Federation of Association Football"), commonly known by the acronym FIFA. The most prestigious international football competition is the FIFA World Cup, held every four years.

About Ice Hockey

Ice hockey (hockey in countries where it is the most popular form of hockey) is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a puck into the opposing team's goal. It is a fast-paced physical sport. Ice hockey is most popular in areas that are sufficiently cold for natural reliable seasonal ice cover, such as Canada, the Czech Republic, Latvia, the Nordic countries (especially Sweden and Finland), United States, Russia, Slovakia, and Switzerland. With the advent of indoor artificial ice rinks it has become a year-round pastime in these areas. Ice hockey is one of the four major North American professional sports. Worldwide the National Hockey League (NHL) is the highest level for men and both the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL) and the Western Women's Hockey League (WWHL) are the highest levels for women. It is the official national winter sport of Canada, where the game enjoys immense popularity.

While there are 68 total members of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), 162 of 177 medals at the IIHF World Championships have been taken by seven nations: Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and the United States.[1][2] Of the 64 medals awarded in men's competition at the Olympic level from 1920 on, only six did not go to the one of those countries. All twelve Olympic and 36 IIHF World Women Championships medals have gone to one of those seven countries, and every gold medal in both competitions has been won by either Canada or the United States.

About Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team (the batting team) take turns hitting against the pitcher of the other team (the fielding team), which tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team can stop at any of the bases and later advance via a teammate's hit or other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning; nine innings make up a professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.

Evolving from older bat-and-ball games, an early form of baseball was being played in England by the mid-eighteenth century. This game and the related rounders were brought by British and Irish immigrants to North America, where the modern version of baseball developed. By the late nineteenth century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball on the professional, amateur, and youth levels is now popular in North America, parts of Central and South America and the Caribbean, and parts of East Asia. The game is sometimes referred to as hardball, in contrast to the derivative game of softball.

About Golf

The origin of golf is unclear and open to debate. Some historians trace the sport back to the Roman game of paganica, in which participants used a bent stick to hit a stuffed leather ball. One theory asserts that paganica spread throughout Europe as the Romans conquered most of the continent, during the first century B.C., and eventually evolved into the modern game. Others cite chuiwan ("chui" means striking and "wan" means small ball) as the progenitor, a Chinese game played between the eighth and 14th centuries. A Ming Dynasty scroll dating back to 1368 entitled "The Autumn Banquet", shows a member of the Chinese Imperial court swinging what appears to be a golf club at a small ball with the aim of sinking it into a hole. The game is thought to have been introduced into Europe during the Middle Ages. Another early game that resembled modern golf was known as cambuca in England and chambot in France. This game was, in turn, exported to the Low Countries, Germany, and England (where it was called pall-mall, pronounced “pell mell”). Some observers, however, believe that golf descended from the Persian game, chaugán. In addition, kolven (a game involving a ball and curved bats) was played annually in Loenen, Netherlands, beginning in 1297, to commemorate the capture of the assassin of Floris V, a year earlier. According to the most widely accepted account, however, the modern game originated in Scotland around the 12th century, with shepherds knocking stones into rabbit holes on the current site of the Old Course at St Andrews.

Golf is a precision club-and-ball sport, in which competing players (golfers), using many types of clubs, attempt to hit balls into each hole on a golf course while employing the fewest number of strokes. Golf is one of the few ball games that does not require a standardized playing area. Instead, the game is played on golf "courses", each of which features a unique design, although courses typically consist of either nine or 18 holes. Golf is defined, in the rules of golf, as "playing a ball with a club from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules." Golf competition is generally played for the lowest number of strokes by an individual, known simply as stroke play, or the lowest score on the most individual holes during a complete round by an individual or team, known as match play.

About Swimming

There are many types of swimming strokes for those who love to swim, whether in competition or for leisure. The creation of swimming strokes dates back to 1926 and was improved for Olympic competitions and relays. These are some of the most popular strokes used today and basic methods for executing them properly.
Types: The breastroke, butterfly, backstroke, freestyle and sidestroke are some of the most used and popular strokes. Benefits Certain swimming strokes are used for major competitions, as well as for exercise and leisure activities. Geography Swimming strokes have been invented everywhere including North America, Australia and Germany.
Features: Some features of swimming strokes are the sidestroke where the body is on the side and legs are doing the scissor kick, the backstroke where arms are used alternatively over the head while the swimmer is on her back, and the butterfly stroke where the arms are used together in a windmill type fashion and the legs are in a dolphin kick. Fun Fact The dog paddle, modeled after the way dogs swim, is considered to be the easiest stroke of all; and the freestyle stroke allows the swimmer to use any stroke in competition allowing only 15 meters of actual underwater time at the start of the race or from each turn that the swimmer does in the race.

About Field Hockey

Field hockey is a team sport in which a team of players attempt to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking the ball with hockey sticks into the opposing team's goal. Its offocial name is simply hockey, and this is the common name for it in many countries. However, the name field is used in countries where the word hockey is usually reserved for another form of hockey, such as ice hockey or street hockey.

Hockey has several regular international tournaments for both men and women. These include the Olympic Games, the quadrennial Hockey World Cups, the annual Champions Trophies and World Cups for Juniors.

Many countries have extensive club competitions for junior and senior players. Despite the large number of participants—hockey is thought to be the field team sport with the second largest number of participants worldwide (the first being association football)—club hockey is not a large spectator sport and few players play as full-time professionals. Hockey is a sport played internationally by both males and females however in some countries, such as the United States, is predominantly played by females. In countries where winter prevents play outdoors, hockey is played indoors during the off-season. This variant, indoor field hockey, differs in a number of respects.

About Cricket

Cricket as a bat-and-ball team sport that is first documented as being played in southern England in the 16th century. By the end of the 18th century, cricket had developed to the point where it had become the national sport of England. The expansion of the British Empire led to cricket being played overseas and by the mid-19th century the first international matches were being held. Today, the game's governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), has 104 member countries. With its greatest popurality in the Test playing countries, cricket is the world's second most popular sport after Association football. The rules of the game are known as the Laws of Cricket. These are maintained by the ICC and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), which holds the copyright. A cricket match is played on a cricket field at the centre of which is a pitch. The match is contested between two teams of eleven players each. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible without being dismissed (out) while the other team bowls and fields trying to dismiss the other team's batsmen, the roles become reversed and it is now the fielding team's turn to bat and try to outscore the opposition.

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a racquet that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. The modern game of tennis originated in the United Kingdom in the late 19th century as "ilawn tennis" which has heavy connections to various field/lawn games as well as to the ancient game of real tennis. After its creation, tennis spread throughout the upper-class English-speaking population before spreading around the world. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all ages. The sport can be played by anyone who can hold a racket, including people in wheelchairs. The rule of tennis have not changed much since the 1890s. Two exceptions are that form 1908 to 1960 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times and then the adoption of the tie-break in the 1970s. A recent addition to professional tennis has been the adoption of eletronic review technology coupled with a point challenge system, which allows a player to challenge the line (or chair) umpire's call of a point. Tennis enjoys millions of recretional players and is also hugely popular worldwide spectator sport, especially the four Grand Slam tournaments (also referred to as the "Majors"): the Australian Open, the FGrench Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open.

Basketball is one the most popular and widely viewed sport in the world and it has grown alot over the years. Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwimg or "shooting" a ball through the top of the basketball hoop while following a set of rules. The ball can be advanced on the court by bouncing it while walking or running (dribbling) or passing it to a teammate. It is a violation to walk with the ball ( take three steps without bouncing the ball at least once), carry it or to double dribble ( to hold the ball and then resume dribbling). Variuous violations are generally called "fouls". Basketball has evolved many commonly used techniques of shooting, passing, and dribbling as well as specialized player positions and offensive and defensive structures (player positioning) and techniques. Typically, the tallest members of a team will play "center", "small forward" or "power forward" positions, while shorter players or those eho possess the best ball handling skills and speed play "point gaurd" or "shooting gaurd". In this sport, the main objective is to score points by placing the basketball in the opponent's basket which is kept at a height of 10 ft. There are 5 players each, in both the teams. Passing is also an important move in basketball, because it helps to cover the distance quickly. There are many rules and regulations in basketball that discourange any unfair moves by players. The duration of the game played at the international level is divided in 10 min quaters; while in the NBA League, the quaters are of 12 min each. The court size is 28 by 15 m (in an international game); while the NBA League uses 29 by 15 m size courts.

Introduction to Sports

"Sport" comes from the old French desport meaning "leisure." American English uses the term "sports" to refer to this general type of recreational activity, whereas other dialects use the singular "sport". A sport is commonly defined as an organised, competitive, and skillful activity requiring commotment and fair play. It is governed by a set of rules or customs. In a sport the key factors are the physical capabilities and skills of the competitor when determining the outcome (winning or losing). The physical activity involves the movement of people, animals or a variety of subjects such as balls and machines. Accurate records are kept and updated for most often played just for fun or for the simple fact that people need exercise to stay in good physical condition. However, professional sport is a major source of entertainment. Although they do not always succeed, sports participants are expected to display good sportsmanship and observe standards of conduct such as being respectful of opponents and officials, and congratulating the winner when losing. Some say that "Sports can keep you physically healthy". But, do you know why? Sports can improve the 5 components of fitness, namely: Strength, Speed, Skill, Stamina, and Suppleness. Sports can burn calories. Sports can affect your appetite.