I…theres a lot here.

You could easily burn 5000 calories, walk 10000 steps etc working as a cook in a restaurant on a saturday shift. I wouldnt call it a sport strictly because it burns calories.

Yes the culture that you should play through the pain is bad. Yes rugby is also inherently violent but soccer is not. Soccer is easy to change to minimize injuries.

Ya, idiots find sports without unnecessary violence boring. But hockey wont be boring if we just take out the fighting at the least. It didnt get boring when they started wearing helmets that made it harder to see players faces. It didnt get boring when icing was implemented. We live in a society where we can make the rules and people can be taught that watching people hurt each other as a side effect shouldnt be a thing.

(There is nuance here, as i dont call for getting rid of, say fighting sports like boxing, but if the objective is to chase a ball around and get it into a net, violence doesnt have to be a component for it to be entertaining.)

You do whitewater kayaking too, but dont want your kids to do it? Why not? you can teach them to reduce the risks by getting their roll strong and to always lean towards the rock etc. Why wouldnt you want your kids to do the fun stuff you did? Do you let them ride bikes? Cars always want to murder me on the road, but it doesnt mean i should give up bicycling.

There is always going to be risks associated with lots of stuff, the key is to minimize those risks where reasonable. (Like i wouldnt want my kid to do free climbing unless he was one of the best climbers in the world or something, but its his choice to do so when he gets older)