MONTREAL, QC. – We belong to what’s probably the most widely-hated fanbase in hockey. I know Leafs fans try and stake their claim on that title once in a while, but how cute is that? The fact remains that we are a pretty vocal, incredibly passionate fanbase, and that passion has earned us a reputation that’s not all good.
I’m not talking about isolated incidents where a small minority makes all of us look bad, such as wearing blackface to the Bell Centre or looting and torching police cars after a playoff win. Those are, as mentioned, isolated incidents that are not representative of Canadiens fans at all.
I’m talking about the vitriol we often attract when we’re liberally booing bad calls (or any calls) at the Bell Centre and singing the Ole song loudly all game. For some reason the expression of love for our team gets on other hockey fans’ nerves.
“Classless,” it’s called.
“Everything is not a penalty,” we are reminded.
“Ugh. I hate Habs fans,” we often hear.
Should we be taking a page out of their books, then?
There is a disturbing trend I am noticing among message boards, on Facebook, on Twitter and on some blogs from fans of other teams when it comes to the Habs and their fans. Too often, people are resorting to classless, ignorant comments, which is probably not new but definitely becoming more and more prevalent.
In the last few weeks alone I’ve winced about 59 times.
A couple of weeks ago when Carey Price capped his shootout win over the Pittsburgh Penguins with a talked-to-death pose, I noticed a Penguins fan on Twitter say she hoped he would die in a car crash on the way home that night. A few days later, a grown man from the Boston Bruins camp said something along the lines of, “I’ll name my firstborn after the Bruin who concusses PK Subban tonight.” Not long later, a New York Rangers fan made some racist slurs with reference to French people.
Tonight, during a beatdown of the sleeping Habs by the Philadelphia Flyers, Twitter showcased the “best” ignorance had to offer, from homophobic remarks to more slurs against the French to a Philadelphia fan retweeting everything Habs fans said and adding some really idiotic comments, such as “all the female Habs fans are butt ugly.”
Really, Internet? This is what we’ve come to? Wishing death and injuries upon players? Racist remarks about a large portion of the Canadiens fanbase? Homophobia? All of which are coming out of the mouths (or keyboards) of grown adults who should really know better?
Maybe it’s just that I choose to interact only with the Habs fans that would not make ignorant comments like that, but I really haven’t seen any of that stuff coming from Habs fans (or Leafs fans, for that matter).
No, we’ve just earned our reputation for being classless by singing a little too loudly when our team is winning.
Great article Laura.
I think that it’s become all too common all over the internet… spend 5 minutes on YouTube and you’ll find that “internet trolling” has become a popular internet sport.
Twitter becomes quite “conversational” in many ways…. and not a private conversation… but a public conversation. People may forget that they are incredibly well versed in the art of “verbal diarrhea”.. and forget any notion of respect.
I think some fans (like american fans) may be a little sensitive to Habs fans in general…. because they’ve heard the “classless” booing of their anthem. (And classless it was)
I believe that Twitter allows people to write more along the lines of what they think as opposed to how they would react in a “face to face”… just because it’s so easy to write impulsively behind a computer.
It’s all about respect… and that’s my $0.02 worth for now….
;-)
Again… great article Laura.
Awesome, Laura – this hits close to home not just as a Habs fan, but as an authority in the field of cyberbullying (on which I am writing my Masters thesis). The internet gives people a sense of power in that their anonymity, or even just their distance from their targets, lends them the curious feeling of being able to say whatever they want, to whomever they want, no matter the circumstances.
The Internet holds a great deal of positive results in its ability to allow those from far and wide to communicate in the blink of an eye, but when that communication becomes vitriolic, we need to take a second look. You call it manners. I call it netiquette (though I wish I’d coined the term). You talk about attacks, when in essence, it is cyberbullying, especially as it is being done on a repetitive basis.
What’s going on in the world of hockey vis-à-vis the hate and death wishes is less cyberbullying than hate speech (cyberbullying is usually bully-victim directly) but I’ve also seen that kind of stuff posted directly to Twitter users.
Thank you for bringing this to the forefront of hockey/Habs fans – maybe we can show the class we are capable of alongside the swell of emotional support we are famous for; it would be a first!
Super article, timely topic – and hey, if you want to contribute to my thesis material, lemme know ;-)
Sorry, but who cares?.. I mean yeah we “Booh” the heck out of bad calls made against our team, we raise our voices and chant “ole” when our team wins, that’s part of being a fan. If they want to tell us off because of those reasons, fine by me. I even posted a “thank you note” on a Bruins talkback a few weeks ago after seeing a comment about us and our “Ole” chant. I said “We’ll thank you, this shows the world that we, as Habs fans, are able to come togheter no matter what race, what religion, what ever makes us physically different from one another after a good performance by our team. We like to show them gratitude after a win, this is what being a fan is all about.”
While on the other hand, many hockey players have said that, win or lose, they would never bring in family to a place like Philly because they would worry about their actual security surrounded by those types of fans, and if they do go to Philly, they tell them NOT to wear their jerseys else they could end up being stabbed or worse.
Now what kind of people stab other people because they take for another team? Idiots that’s who!
So I rather be called out for being behind my team than for being so stupid that I could stab someone for not cheering on my team. Boston also had an altercations a few years ago where a large group of people started hitting other people after a game because the Bruins lost.
If this is the kind of fans are out there…
Then we have the actual Islanders who posted on their site “No Habs No!” showing a big red circle against some Habs fans in their rink. Sorry idiots, but these are paying customers that actually fill up your arena when the Habs are in town, else you get the famous 3000 to 7000 tickets being sold. AND with the NHL sharing revenu outfit Bettman sold the owners on, the Habs and Leafs are actually paying a good chunk of the NHL teams salaries, which actually helped keep Philly alive when they weren’t winning games and the seating charts looked more like the Claifornia Desert. So better be nice else we’ll stop sharing the money and start closing your teams and bringin’ in the good players over to ours.
Habs, Leafs and NYR fans are actually keeping the NHL in the green…
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