{"id":297,"date":"2008-11-02T22:55:11","date_gmt":"2008-11-03T02:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/?p=297"},"modified":"2008-11-02T22:55:11","modified_gmt":"2008-11-03T02:55:11","slug":"on-fanhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/2008\/11\/02\/on-fanhood\/","title":{"rendered":"On Fanhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

I happened to be watching the Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada while milling about more or less aimlessly in a “live” game thread on the Pension Plan Puppets<\/a> site.\u00a0\u00a0 Basically, I hung out in a virtual basement (I don’t know if it was Chemmy’s or P3’s house) with a bunch of my fellow Leaf fans and we watched the game together.\u00a0\u00a0 None of us knew what was about to unfold:\u00a0 after a spirited but unlucky opening two stanzas, and trailing 2-0 going in to the third, Toronto seemed more or less resigned to their fate throughout the first ten minutes of the period.\u00a0 Then, boosted by a terrific performance by rookie John Mitchell<\/a>, they scored five goals in five minutes and twenty-two seconds<\/a> to win the game 5-2.<\/p>\n

Folks in the virtual rec room were pretty excited, and I could see on TV that the fans at the Air Canada Centre were stoked too;\u00a0 they gave the Leafs an enthusiastic standing ovation in the final minute of play.\u00a0 It was great to see the folks in the building – which is often a monument to corporate reserve, especially in the platinum seating area close to the ice surface – get up and wave their arms, pound their hands together, and generally scream their fool heads off because they were excited by their team’s performance.<\/p>\n

The events of last night, along with the official commencement of the Revolution of the Barilkosphere<\/a> earlier this week, have gotten me thinking a little bit about the nature of fan-dom. The Revolution was provoked by the most recent cut-and-paste, written-with-a-crayon-and-little-or-no-forethought, blame-the-fans for the hockey team’s problems article.\u00a0 Here’s a sampling of Berger’s most recent instantiation of this “argument”:<\/p>\n

Arguably the worst team in the National Hockey League since the lockout continues to be the most lucrative commodity on skates. Even the tall foreheads at Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment have seemingly thrown in the towel on their annual dissing of Forbes Magazines\u2019 NHL value rankings. Normally, by the evening of the announcement, CEO Richard Peddie is on record suggesting that no person outside the hallowed halls of the Air Canada Centre could possibly have a line on the Leafs\u2019 monetary worth. This is either an effort to keep the tax people at bay, or to avoid laughing out loud at the sheep that form the lifeblood of the company.<\/p>\n

Yes, that is YOU, Leafs Nation.<\/p>\n

An insatiable willingness to accept whatever garbage is tossed your way each year lines the pockets of the executives you purportedly \u201chate\u201d [I see that word a lot in my e-mails]. No form of indignity is powerful enough to dissuade you from the uncontrollable love of your Blue & White. You bitch\u2026 and moan\u2026 and go insane over the always-accurate appraisals of the team in the media. Depending on the hour of day, you either castigate or lionize members of the hockey club \u2014 often the same player. The familiar disappointment of missing the playoffs on April 8th is washed away with delusional fantasies by April 9th. And, always, you are there to buy every ticket; purchase every jersey; watch every game on TV; lose your mind over every word written and spoken about the team [the part I like best], and generally cradle the habit you have no power to temper, let alone break. You are, by any measure, the most easily placated fans in all of sport \u2014 rivaled only by the zombie-like baseball fanatics on the north side of Chicago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This line of thinking (is there such a thing as a “line of ranting”?\u00a0 That seems to me a more apt comparison) suffers from a fundamentally flawed premise in terms of its economic reasoning – as Sean at Down Goes Brown<\/a> has ably pointed out<\/a>.\u00a0 It also attributes certain behaviours to Leaf fans that don’t bear any resemblance to reality;\u00a0 to say that anybody who follows the team this year is having “delusional fantasies” is itself (ironically) a delusional fantasy; to say that expectations for this year’s team are low even among Leaf fans is a massive understatement.\u00a0 Heck, even the Leaf-o-centric media gadflys at Cox Bloc<\/a> picked them to finish<\/a> “at or near the bottom” of the entire league.\u00a0 I haven’t heard a single person of any persuasion opine that the Leafs would challenge for the Cup.\u00a0 I can’t even think of anyone I personally know who’s been willing to wager that they’d make the playoffs.\u00a0\u00a0 Quite the contrary, I think the general perception – at least around the Barilkosphere – was that the Leafs would lose a LOT of games this year;\u00a0 this would happen because the team was thought not to have much talent, and what talent it possessed was believed to be trade bait for prospects and draft picks as part of a quest to rebuild, and maybe to draft John Tavares next June.<\/p>\n

It seems to me, though, that the Howard’s reasoning – or more properly, the reasoning he apes for the umpteenth time – is even more deeply flawed than that.\u00a0 He suggests that the correct course of action for any fan, in the face of losing, is to withdraw his or her support for the team.\u00a0 More simply, the argument might be stated as follows:\u00a0 one should only follow a team that wins.\u00a0 By this “logic”, there ought to be 29 buildings in the NHL that remain empty all season.\u00a0 If you’re a fan of any team in any sport, you know<\/em> that this reasoning is specious;\u00a0 it just feels wrong.<\/p>\n

But why?\u00a0 What is it that makes a person a “fan”?\u00a0 In short, what are the ethics of fandom?<\/p>\n

The connection between fan and team is not transactional:\u00a0 fans do not give their support to a team as a currency in the expectation of receiving – like goods and services – satisfaction in the form of wins.\u00a0 There is no quid pro<\/em> being exchanged for quo<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 It is neither a bargain nor a barter.<\/p>\n

This is because the relation between fan and team is not fleeting and ephemeral, as between buyer and seller.\u00a0 It is not a relationship defined by passing circumstance or supply and demand, such as might be true of rational actors in a marketplace of goods.\u00a0\u00a0 The relationship is instead one that is – at its roots – essentially tribal.\u00a0 To identify oneself as a “fan” is to express continuing<\/em> membership in a community;\u00a0 one does not say “I have cheered for the Leafs”, but “I [continue to] root for the Leafs”. \u00a0 The reasons that a given individual may find for self-identifying as a member of the community in the first place are many\u00a0 – family tradition, geography, an interest in a particular player – but the initial interest continues to manifest itself in the form of an ongoing emotional or spiritual connection to the team.<\/p>\n

Consider some of the fanposts on offer at Pension Plan Puppets<\/a>, on the subject of the origins of fandom.\u00a0 Here’s one such post, from a PPP user named frost<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I remember going to large family gatherings and sitting in the smoke filled, beer soaked basement at my grandmother’s house watching those 93′ Leafs captivate the male members of my family. I don’t remember much from that year (as I was only 5 at the time) but every memory I do have is centered around one man. Wendel Clark, the man, the legend, the mustache. I remember how excited my uncles would get whenever he was on the ice. Whenever he would drop the gloves we would all cheer and I would imitate my uncles yelling “Give ’em Hell Wendel”, my mother didn’t approve of my language. He quickly became my favourite player. From that moment on I was hooked. I have faithfully watched the Leafs ever since and hope for the day when we see a team (and a player) like in 93′, and though it won’t be anytime soon, i’ll keep watching and cheering just the same.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have similar memories of my own, from an earlier era:\u00a0 Dave Keon providing a model for me as an undersized aspiring young forward (the failure of that experiment being irrelevant, and related to my own athletic limitations more directly than to Keon’s example);\u00a0 then Sittler, Salming and McDonald gamely battling the brutal Flyers year-in and year-out, my father and I leaping into each others’ arms and dancing for joy when Lanny beat Chico Resch in game 7<\/a>;\u00a0 Wendel Clark’s phenomenal game 7 against the Kings in ’93, which I was privileged to attend with one of my buddies. \u00a0\u00a0 Actually, pretty much all of Wendel’s career as a Leaf was fun to follow for me.\u00a0 I remember Wendel punching out Slava Fetisov’s lights<\/a> on a knee that Fetisov had just rendered gimpy, and I’ll never forget how he attempted to put a six-inch diameter hole in Marty McSorley’s face<\/a>\u00b9 after McSorley ran Doug Gilmour late in Game 1 of the ’93 semi-finals.\u00a0\u00a0 Paul Morris announcing the goals in the most wonderfully disinterested monotone at the Gardens.\u00a0 King Clancy.\u00a0 Red Kelly.\u00a0 The Chief.\u00a0\u00a0 Getting a single ticket from a scalper for a mid-season game and sitting alone in the blues at the south end of the Gardens, marvelling at the fact that you could feel the air mass moving when the players moved into the near zone.\u00a0 Pretending to be Doug Favell when I played net in road hockey.\u00a0 Hating the Red Wings, the Habs, and now the Senators.\u00a0\u00a0 Staring at the TV screen in disbelief as Allan Bester whiffed on a 75-foot Sergio Momesso slapshot.\u00a0 Writing to Favell, at the age of six, and receiving a manilla envelope with return address stamped on the upper left corner:\u00a0 60 Carlton St., Toronto, Ontario.\u00a0 Opening the envelope and finding an autographed team photo, with Doug’s best wishes inscribed on it, and the signature of all of my heroes.\u00a0 Clearing an entire shelf in my bedroom to display the revered relic so obtained.<\/p>\n

The point is that the connection is one of emotional commitment.\u00a0 It is unconditional and unseverable.\u00a0 I root for the Leafs because I want them to win;\u00a0 more accurately, I want to enjoy the process of wanting them to win.\u00a0\u00a0 Bill Simmons got it right in his column “20 Rules for being a true fan<\/a>”<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

… you can’t start rooting for a team, back off when they’re in a down cycle, then renew the relationship once the team starts winning again. All those Cowboys fans who jumped off the bandwagon in the late-’80s, jumped back on during the Emmitt\/Aikman Era, then jumped back off in the late-’90s … you know who you are. You shouldn’t even be allowed out in public.<\/p>\n

(There’s nothing worse than a Bandwagon Jumper. If sports were a prison and sports fans made up all the prisoners, the Bandwagon Jumpers would be like the child molesters — everyone else would pick on them, take turns beating them up and force them to toss more salads than Emeril Lagasse.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Do not argue with me about whether this “should” be the way that things are.\u00a0 True sports fans know that Simmons is right, there is a very Calvinist ethos behind all of this.\u00a0 Being a fan is an ongoing process, and part of earning the right to enjoy the reward – the peaks of success – is slogging faithfully, loyally and honourably through the tough times – the Jiri Crha years, for example. \u00a0 Three years without a playoff game, for another.<\/p>\n

Whether this “should” be the case or not is irrelevant.\u00a0 It is the case.\u00a0 That is what it means to be a fan of a particular team.\u00a0 Guys like Howard Berger would do well to read Simmons’ article, because they would do well to understand the people they are purporting to describe – before putting pen to paper.<\/p>\n

—————-<\/p>\n

\u00b9 I say “attempted”, because he did not succeed in creating such an aperture;\u00a0 the hole created was actually eight<\/em> inches in diameter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I happened to be watching the Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada while milling about more or less aimlessly in a “live” game thread on the Pension Plan Puppets site. Basically, I hung out in a virtual basement (I don’t know if it was Chemmy’s or P3’s house) with a bunch of my fellow Leaf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,3,11],"tags":[202,1153,549,1210,1156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}