No fights? No Problem as Fans Entertain themselves …
Was at the game last night, Flyers vs Senators. No fights. No hitting. I know I sound like a broken record. The Flyers broke in their new huge-ass jumbo tron by showing a collage of beatdowns of yesteryear and the place went wild. Something the league just refuses to get: paying fans like tough hockey.
Props to the Flyers for the fight collage, which flies in the face of the NHL and its secret policy forbidding fight replays and fight footage at arenas. This is not a joke. This policy actually exists.
But no props to the hired jackasses that kept trying to start the wave in the stands between periods.
“What’s wrong with you? Get up. Be a fan” the one guy said to me when I was relaxing between periods, singling me out in front of several dozen people.
I said that if I do get up it will be to kick his ass down the cement stairs. A lot of people laughed at the guy and he moved on. Note to Flyers and all hockey clubs everywhere: the wave is stupid and it opens the door to other stupid things like the chicken dance. So let’s just let fans kick back between periods or get a beer or a bathroom run or whatever they want to do. We paid for the tickets. Just let us relax is we want to.
Forsberg looks even better than before on the ice. Hopefully, he finishes his career in Philly. But in Philly, you never know.
Some brave lady wearing a $400 Senators shirt started getting loud and started rubbing an Ottawa goal in the face of fans in section 124. Her husband was guilty too. I told the kids that this wasn’t going to turn out well for the visitors. My rule to my kids is that if you wear your team’s colors at an away rink, it’s ok. Just don’t taunt people, be polite and if you win, win graciously and the same goes for losing. Any other behavior spells trouble on foreign ice, so to speak. (One exception to the rule: No matter what team you like, plain clothes should always be worn at Devils home games … unless you have a mullet. Mullet heads seldom pick on other mulleteers.)
Within seconds after my prediction, the female Sens fan was wearing a tub of popcorn on her head. The really large bucket too. And she was likewise showered with other assorted gifts from the Aramark catalog. Security moved her to new seats and escorted the culprits from the building but only after they were given a heroes exit by several thousand fans. Soon, the Sens lady was pounded again. She just didn’t learn the first time. Her husband was terrified and petrified.
This is Philly sweetheart … you’re a long way from the capital city of Canada. Here’s the door. Have a good night.
My 11-year-old son said: “Man if someone threw stuff at mom’s head, boy that would get scary. I don’t even want to think what would happen to those guys, dad. We’d be on the news.”
You can try to take the fights away from the hockey fans, but you can’t take the fight out of them. Even the young ones.