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Blame it on latent tribalism. Or testosterone. Too much alcohol. Or even the ease with which digital media facilitate slights real and imagined and help to heighten the sense of importance of what is really just a game.
As the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens battle to reach the second round of the National Hockey League playoffs, civility sometimes seems to have become the first casualty.
Friday night at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Game 2: Two young Senators fans are harassed and heckled throughout the game. The women, 19 and 23 years old, say they had beer dumped on them and were shoved around.
Sunday night at the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata, Game 3: A brawl between Canadiens and Sens fans erupts just as the game winning goal is being announced.
Justin Di Vito, who describes himself as a “huge” Habs fan, said he’s disgusted with behaviour of both fans on both sides.
“It’s just unfortunate,” Di Vito said. “I don’t know what does this, if there’s media out there that’s encouraging this sort of behaviour or what.”
Timothy Gassen, president of the World Hockey Association Hall of Fame, says hockey “has become a large part of who we are as a country that people have a heightened sense of importance about what should be a game.”
That, he said, leads to us “othering” our rivals. “We see our rivals as abstractions, not real people.”
It’s the same fervour, he said, that boosts sales of team merchandise.
Sunday night’s brawl might not have been much of a deal but for its being caught on video, then copied and spread across the Internet, quickly becoming a focal point and all the bigger for it.
Such behaviour, though, isn’t new. According to one hockey historian, the sport and its fans have always had an air of violence.
Michael McKinley, whose books include Our Game: Celebrating 100 years of hockey, said the first indoor hockey game — played in Montreal in 1875 — ended with a brawl between spectators and players.
“James Creighton staged it with rugby players, to see if it would work inside, and the skating club from the Victoria rink in Montreal were annoyed that the game had taken so long. And they fought them,” McKinley said.
In the 1950s, fans hurled racist insults at black and aboriginal players. “I did a book on Willie O’Ree (the first black player in the NHL), and he told me he hated going to Chicago,” McKinley said.
And there was the Richard Riot in Montreal. Maurice “Rocket” Richard had been suspended for four days by NHL president Clarence Campbell for punching a linesman.
When Campbell showed up for the March 17, 1955, game at the Forum, fans pelted him with tomatoes, eggs and other garbage. Eventually, a tear-gas canister was set off, and the angry fans spilled out into the street. The subsequent riot caused more than $100,000 damage — no small amount in the mid ’50s.
Post-game riots didn’t end there, of course — Montreal, 1993, Vancouver in 1994, Edmonton, 2008: “A thing like hockey in Canada, where so much of your civic identity has been invested in a team, combined with alcohol, and a mob mentality … it can mean bad things,” said McKinley.
“Our tribalism is just bubbling beneath the surface all the time,” he said. “But most people see the line. The actions of those guys in Montreal (on Sunday night) just betrays a lack of intelligence.”
Gassen said he believes it’s an institutional problem, that young people need to be taught to to respect the game, to learn its history. “If we taught people in Montreal and Toronto about the history of each team, they probably wouldn’t want to beat the crap out of each other,” he said.
Habs fan Di Vito has his own take on it: “There are great fans in every fan base. It just so happens that there are spineless idiots making the most noise,” he said. “The negative aspects of both fan bases are being showcased here, but there is a really nice side to them.
“I’ve grown to have a big hatred for the Senators, but I know they have great fans.”
With files from Jonathan Duncan
查看原文...
As the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens battle to reach the second round of the National Hockey League playoffs, civility sometimes seems to have become the first casualty.
Friday night at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Game 2: Two young Senators fans are harassed and heckled throughout the game. The women, 19 and 23 years old, say they had beer dumped on them and were shoved around.
Sunday night at the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata, Game 3: A brawl between Canadiens and Sens fans erupts just as the game winning goal is being announced.
Justin Di Vito, who describes himself as a “huge” Habs fan, said he’s disgusted with behaviour of both fans on both sides.
“It’s just unfortunate,” Di Vito said. “I don’t know what does this, if there’s media out there that’s encouraging this sort of behaviour or what.”
Timothy Gassen, president of the World Hockey Association Hall of Fame, says hockey “has become a large part of who we are as a country that people have a heightened sense of importance about what should be a game.”
That, he said, leads to us “othering” our rivals. “We see our rivals as abstractions, not real people.”
It’s the same fervour, he said, that boosts sales of team merchandise.
Sunday night’s brawl might not have been much of a deal but for its being caught on video, then copied and spread across the Internet, quickly becoming a focal point and all the bigger for it.
Such behaviour, though, isn’t new. According to one hockey historian, the sport and its fans have always had an air of violence.
Michael McKinley, whose books include Our Game: Celebrating 100 years of hockey, said the first indoor hockey game — played in Montreal in 1875 — ended with a brawl between spectators and players.
“James Creighton staged it with rugby players, to see if it would work inside, and the skating club from the Victoria rink in Montreal were annoyed that the game had taken so long. And they fought them,” McKinley said.
In the 1950s, fans hurled racist insults at black and aboriginal players. “I did a book on Willie O’Ree (the first black player in the NHL), and he told me he hated going to Chicago,” McKinley said.
And there was the Richard Riot in Montreal. Maurice “Rocket” Richard had been suspended for four days by NHL president Clarence Campbell for punching a linesman.
When Campbell showed up for the March 17, 1955, game at the Forum, fans pelted him with tomatoes, eggs and other garbage. Eventually, a tear-gas canister was set off, and the angry fans spilled out into the street. The subsequent riot caused more than $100,000 damage — no small amount in the mid ’50s.
Post-game riots didn’t end there, of course — Montreal, 1993, Vancouver in 1994, Edmonton, 2008: “A thing like hockey in Canada, where so much of your civic identity has been invested in a team, combined with alcohol, and a mob mentality … it can mean bad things,” said McKinley.
“Our tribalism is just bubbling beneath the surface all the time,” he said. “But most people see the line. The actions of those guys in Montreal (on Sunday night) just betrays a lack of intelligence.”
Gassen said he believes it’s an institutional problem, that young people need to be taught to to respect the game, to learn its history. “If we taught people in Montreal and Toronto about the history of each team, they probably wouldn’t want to beat the crap out of each other,” he said.
Habs fan Di Vito has his own take on it: “There are great fans in every fan base. It just so happens that there are spineless idiots making the most noise,” he said. “The negative aspects of both fan bases are being showcased here, but there is a really nice side to them.
“I’ve grown to have a big hatred for the Senators, but I know they have great fans.”
With files from Jonathan Duncan
查看原文...
