Football game - Winning Eleven 6: Final Evolution (Japanese only and pretty hard to find at a low price - expect to pay about £50 for a copy) IMO the only football game you should be considering
Ice Hockey game - NHL Hitz 2002. It's completely OTT, and doesn't even try to be serious but that's why I like it so much. Completely violent, aggressive and a lot of fun to play. Other hockey games just seem boring, IMO, but I really like the Hitz games - and 2002 is the best one of the series
skateboarding game - Tony Hawk's Underground. The PS2 version is better but the GC version is still great. Hawk is the best game in its genre...easily
Yes it's really that good It sells for stupid money because it was a pretty limited production run (something like 15,000 I guess)
It was only released in Japan because Sony held the exclusive license for Winning Eleven (aka Pro Evo) in Europe. That's now expired though because the next Pro Evo game will get an Xbox release