Booing is often all fans have
Sept 24, 2005 8:14:55 GMT -5
Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Sept 24, 2005 8:14:55 GMT -5
Booing is often all fans have
By DAVID SHOALTS
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Booing is the last weapon of the civilized sports fan, and it is an often misunderstood.
When directed by home fans at their own team, booing is mostly misunderstood by the targets, the pampered millionaire athletes. They like to respond that they either did not hear the boos or are not troubled by them.
That is what Nik Antropov had to say Thursday night after the Toronto Maple Leafs played a preseason hockey game at the Air Canada Centre.
Some of the 18,853 fans aired their displeasure with his play.
"If they choose to do that, then I don't have any [control] over it," Antropov said. "I didn't do anything wrong. When I'm on the ice I just concentrate on hockey, so I didn't really pay any attention to it."
That was a typical response from a player but you can be assured of this -- players hear the boos and they take them personally. Players, who have been coddled from an early age thanks to their talent (Antropov is an exception to this, by the way, given his hardscrabble upbringing in Kazakhstan), tend to think the fans are saying, "I hate you, I hate your family and I hate the know-nothing GM who ever told you you could play hockey."
However, while the boo may be a crude expression of anger, it is a subtle one. Most of the time, when it is directed toward a player or team by their own supporters, it has one of two meanings.
They were summarized nicely by Michael Gee, until recently a sports columnist with the Boston Herald. Gee's credentials on the topic are impeccable. He is a native of Philadelphia, where the locals are famous (or infamous) for booing funerals and Santa Claus.
In an Internet discussion on SportsJournalists.com, sparked by a booing directed at New York Mets reliever Braden Looper by the Shea Stadium faithful, Gee wrote: "Boos of the home team come in two separate categories.
"1. You [stink]! Grantland Rice once wrote that 'they never boo a bum' but of course Rice never got the chance to see the Mets' bullpen in action. It's unkind but understandable.
"2. You can do better than that! The most common form. It's a backhanded form of praise, and is [in my opinion] always in order for fans. When the Eagles stunk the joint out against the Panthers in the 2003 NFC title game, they got booed big-time. They deserved it."
Gee added his favourite boo tale: "All-time Philly boo, much better than Santa Claus even. In the late '70s, when the Phillies were gagging away LCS [League Championship Series] after LCS, Mike Schmidt took his small children to their ritzy suburban school bus stop. The bus pulled up and the elementary school kids inside saw Schmidt and booed loudly."
For hockey fans enduring $12 beers, $25 parking spaces, $200 tickets, a year-long lockout and being blown off when they ask for an autograph, the boo is their only weapon. It is all they have to let the objects of their adoration know their play is not up to scratch. Almost always, if the player in question improves, the boos disappear.
As noted in the first sentence on this column, though, this is the tool of the civilized fan. More and more these days, fans are expressing their anger in direct attacks on players, such as the ugly brawl last November at The Palace of Auburn Hills between the Indiana Pacers basketball team and some Detroit fans.
The fans are not always fair, though, and sometimes booing becomes more of an expression of hatred. Larry Murphy endured that in his brief, unhappy tour with his hometown team, the Maple Leafs, 10 years ago. Murphy was a smart defenceman who is now in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but his deliberate style drove Torontonians wild. They wanted the team's defence to glide up the ice like Bobby Orr.
As he slowly made his way up the ice, not looking to pass until he reached centre ice, the noise would build. Toward the end of his second season in Toronto, it got so bad that then-general manager Cliff Fletcher did Murphy a favour and traded him to Detroit, where he capped the season with the Stanley Cup
By DAVID SHOALTS
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Booing is the last weapon of the civilized sports fan, and it is an often misunderstood.
When directed by home fans at their own team, booing is mostly misunderstood by the targets, the pampered millionaire athletes. They like to respond that they either did not hear the boos or are not troubled by them.
That is what Nik Antropov had to say Thursday night after the Toronto Maple Leafs played a preseason hockey game at the Air Canada Centre.
Some of the 18,853 fans aired their displeasure with his play.
"If they choose to do that, then I don't have any [control] over it," Antropov said. "I didn't do anything wrong. When I'm on the ice I just concentrate on hockey, so I didn't really pay any attention to it."
That was a typical response from a player but you can be assured of this -- players hear the boos and they take them personally. Players, who have been coddled from an early age thanks to their talent (Antropov is an exception to this, by the way, given his hardscrabble upbringing in Kazakhstan), tend to think the fans are saying, "I hate you, I hate your family and I hate the know-nothing GM who ever told you you could play hockey."
However, while the boo may be a crude expression of anger, it is a subtle one. Most of the time, when it is directed toward a player or team by their own supporters, it has one of two meanings.
They were summarized nicely by Michael Gee, until recently a sports columnist with the Boston Herald. Gee's credentials on the topic are impeccable. He is a native of Philadelphia, where the locals are famous (or infamous) for booing funerals and Santa Claus.
In an Internet discussion on SportsJournalists.com, sparked by a booing directed at New York Mets reliever Braden Looper by the Shea Stadium faithful, Gee wrote: "Boos of the home team come in two separate categories.
"1. You [stink]! Grantland Rice once wrote that 'they never boo a bum' but of course Rice never got the chance to see the Mets' bullpen in action. It's unkind but understandable.
"2. You can do better than that! The most common form. It's a backhanded form of praise, and is [in my opinion] always in order for fans. When the Eagles stunk the joint out against the Panthers in the 2003 NFC title game, they got booed big-time. They deserved it."
Gee added his favourite boo tale: "All-time Philly boo, much better than Santa Claus even. In the late '70s, when the Phillies were gagging away LCS [League Championship Series] after LCS, Mike Schmidt took his small children to their ritzy suburban school bus stop. The bus pulled up and the elementary school kids inside saw Schmidt and booed loudly."
For hockey fans enduring $12 beers, $25 parking spaces, $200 tickets, a year-long lockout and being blown off when they ask for an autograph, the boo is their only weapon. It is all they have to let the objects of their adoration know their play is not up to scratch. Almost always, if the player in question improves, the boos disappear.
As noted in the first sentence on this column, though, this is the tool of the civilized fan. More and more these days, fans are expressing their anger in direct attacks on players, such as the ugly brawl last November at The Palace of Auburn Hills between the Indiana Pacers basketball team and some Detroit fans.
The fans are not always fair, though, and sometimes booing becomes more of an expression of hatred. Larry Murphy endured that in his brief, unhappy tour with his hometown team, the Maple Leafs, 10 years ago. Murphy was a smart defenceman who is now in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but his deliberate style drove Torontonians wild. They wanted the team's defence to glide up the ice like Bobby Orr.
As he slowly made his way up the ice, not looking to pass until he reached centre ice, the noise would build. Toward the end of his second season in Toronto, it got so bad that then-general manager Cliff Fletcher did Murphy a favour and traded him to Detroit, where he capped the season with the Stanley Cup
