The True Fans

Here’s a Wednesday blog as Thursday is Turkey Day and I don’t know if I’ll be in the office on Friday.  Plus there are some football games played on Thursday – all between division rivals.  So the topic might be appropriate.

As you may know, I’m on the Book of Faces and a fan of the Minnesota Vikings, which I have been since the late 1970s, a time when their quarterback was the much-beloved (at least by Vikings fans) Fran Tarkenton and the team had just lost its fourth and final Super Bowl.   Notwithstanding its 6 NFC Championship losses since then, a few of them agonizingly close, I still support the team and hope it will finally win the Big One.  That is, win the NFC Championship and THEN beat the Chiefs, Dolphins, Raiders or Steelers.   Or whichever AFC team it’s up against, possibly even the Patriots.  Hey, Eli Manning is 2-0 and Nick Foles is 1-0 against Tom Brady, so it can be done.

Anyhow.

Obviously there are Vikings pages on the Book of Faces and us Vikings fans might have cause to dispute things between ourselves.   In observing and participating in these spirited discussions I’ve observed three types of fans.

Type C:  The Fair Weather Fan.   We all know the type:  sporting team gear when the team is competitive but oblivious to the sport itself otherwise.  We love to wrap ourselves in the warm cloak of self-righteous contempt against such fans.   Of course.  Not sure how many Vikings fans are like that now, as the team isn’t exactly dominating its division.  Actually, with both the Bears and Lions getting competitive, along with our hated rivals the Packers, no one team can be said to have a lock on the division championship.  It may well get down to the wire this season, with the losers not even guaranteed wildcard slots.  We’ll see. 

Then there’s the Type B:  The Fanatic.  No matter how poorly the team is doing and how strong its opponent, regardless of whether we’re playing an away game and our star players are all injured, this fan loudly proclaims, with utmost conviction and sincerity, that we’ll win the game.   More to the point, this fan accuses anyone who doesn’t share his optimism as a Type C fan.  Huh?  Come on.   We’re Type A.

Type A:  The Realist.  We support the team even if it’s 0-16 (fortunately the Vikings have never been that bad, unlike our pals in Detroit) or if the coach is obviously a moron.  We’ll cautiously support the team against all opponents but feel free to express skepticism when the opponent is relatively stronger.  Our worst fault is Monday morning quarterbacking.   I try to avoid this, and stick to simply making observations I know are supported by the facts and evidence, because I can’t claim to know nearly enough to exceed the skills of even our most incompetent coach.   

Ideally we should all be Type A, supporting the team through thick and thin but not mindlessly cheering when the team does stupid things or loses games it should win.  Personally, the Type B’s strike me as the same type to support popular demagogues – how many Type B Vikings fans not only voted for Trump but still support him even now?  No clue, but I have my suspicions.  

Now, repeat this for the other 31 teams in the NFL, all the MLB baseball teams, the NBA teams, the NHL (probably quite a few Type C Capitals fans nowadays, Ovechkin being far more ubiquitous than he was before), and so on.   And knock yourselves out this Thursday.   Hopefully Mike Zimmer has a plan to beat the Packers next Sunday.   Or perhaps tie again?

Hockey

I had been planning to discuss the last Kings of France, but when the Capitals won the Stanley Cup Finals in game 5 against the Vegas Golden Knights last night, I decided this topic was more timely.   Those of you sitting on the edge of your seats dying to know about Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Louis Phillippe, will have to wait a week.  Hockey was not a big thing in France from 1814 to 1848.  Sorry.

Despite being from the DC area, I’ve never been much of a Capitals fan.  They’re affectionately known as the Caps.  I’d suppose they might be referred to as the Craps in Las Vegas, were it not that this word means something quite different in that city due to its main source of income.   

They share the same venue, the Verizon Center, as the basketball team, the Wizards.  That team was formerly known as the Bullets, until the crybabies whined that the name was a sad reflection on DC’s unsuccessful experiment with gun control.  I’d have renamed them the 9mm Jacketed Hollowpoints, but no one asked me. How many people died in DC because the basketball team was named the Bullets?  How much magic has occurred in DC since they renamed the team?  Zero on both counts.  Anyhow. 

I’ve been two a total of TWO hockey games in my life.  In the late 70s, a group of my young male colleagues were treated to a game at the Capital Centre in Largo, Maryland, between the Caps and the now-deceased Colorado Rockies.  I can’t remember who won the game, but I recall being modestly entertained.   Since we moved to Paris soon thereafter, any interest in seeing hockey in person would have been curtailed by its absence in Paris. 

The second game was in March 1991 when I was visiting my high school buddy Sean in Ottawa, Canada.  He correctly ascertained that a visit – however brief as a weekend, as mine was – would not be complete without a hockey game.  We watched – and enjoyed – a game between the Ottawa ‘67’s and the Sudbury Wolves.   As enjoyable as the experience was, it did not compel me to see any further games of any teams.   Then again, my most likely reason to visit a hockey arena is to see a band play, not watch a hockey game.

What I know.  This will be brief.

1.         It takes place on ice, in a venue which probably also holds basketball games.  Not at the same time (though that might be more entertaining).

2.         It began in Canada in the late 1800s.  The NHL began in 1917, but the NHL had its major expansion in the late 1960s.  Up to that point it was essentially six teams:  the Montreal Canadiens, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Boston Bruins, the Chicago Black Hawks, the Detroit Red Wings, and the New York Rangers.   All of Toronto's championships date from this era.    

3.         Like basketball, and unlike football and baseball, there’s no real offense and defense, those switch with whoever has possession of the puck.

4.         The goal is to hit the puck into the opposing goal past the goalie.

5.         Trophy.  It’s big and tapers down to a large base.   Joe Elliott learned this the hard way, but we all know what a major hockey team Sheffield United is, right? 

6.         Goalie.  He wears a mask, so he looks like Jason from Friday the Thirteenth. 

7.         Penalty box.  Generally the sport is fairly brutal (“I was at a bar and a hockey game broke out”).  If you are TOO brutal you wind up in the penalty box for some time, meaning your team is now down by one player.

8.         Finals.  Best of 7.   Probably a reason I’m not a fan – I prefer this one-and-done stuff like the NFL playoffs and Superb Bowl, where every game is effectively game 7.

9.         Canada is the country most associated with hockey, but competitive players come from Russia and Eastern Europe as well.  There was a player named Satan, which I found amusing. 

10.        The Miracle on Ice.  The US is typically not competitive in Olympic Hockey.   Oddly, despite 5 World Cup victories, Brazil has ZERO gold medals in Olympic soccer.  Anyhow.  In 1980, at the Winter Games in Lake Placid, NY (we had boycotted the Summer Games in Moscow) we managed to beat the Soviet team and win the gold medal.  And there was much rejoicing. 

I realize there is a certain amount of subtlety to any sport where you have to skate on ice, but so far as I can tell, ultimately hockey is still about smacking the puck into the opposing goal, which you do skating on ice and knocking your opponent out of the way without being sent to the penalty box.