What's the difference between...

[BooksandTrees]

What's the difference between watching 10 hours of sports and playing 10 hours of video games? 

I love hockey and my team plays 3 to 4 games per week. Those are 3 hours each. 

I played 8 to 12 hours of video games per week before feeling the desire to play more. 

I probably answered my own question here. I can't control how often my favorite team plays, but I can keep playing games. 

Both are isolating to me. 

[ketias]

just as you can be addicted to Games, you can be addicted to Television. 
They might be your favorite team, but is every single game they play, an important game ?  maybe cut it down to watch the games that are really important to the team, like championships and whatever its called (im not a big sports fan) ?

could also watch it at a sports bar, then it would at least be socializing at the same time, might meet other fans.

[arq]

You kinda did answer your question.

I'd say that the hockey match starts and ends. Independently of you.

Playing games starts and ends dependently on you.

[12345424]

I think that Ketias has a good point. I'm pretty sure there are 12 minute recaps that show just the highlight, that way you don't miss entirely what went down but don't spend so much time on it. Perhaps on a special occasion (e.g. when your favorite team plays vs their biggest rivals or is in a finale) you can watch a full game. 

That would seem like a possible solution to me, as long as you could manage that.