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I missed the final Habs game yesterday. I'm glad I did. Who are these imbeciles who throw bottles of water at their team, who boo their own team? What kind of smallness of mind is this? Solidarity is not about showing your support to your team only when it wins or only when it has puck possession!
At the complete other end of things, I didn't see the Habs game because we were at the Toronto FC game. Toronto FC is the city's Major League Soccer club, the professional North American league, the same league David Beckham kinda plays in when he feels like it. The Toronto fans are known for being the loudest and most supportive in the entire league; probably the only team that has vast delegations travel to other cities to support their team. Now their support is so good that it actually becomes close to meaningless. I was in Section 127, which is inhabited by fan group North End Elite. The chanting was so constant that it actually distracted from the game, and even when the play came in our favour there would be rather little cheering until you basically had a player kicking the ball towards the net. One of the section's cheerleaders spent 95% of his time looking away from the game, facing the section and leading the chants. F really captured the essence: "This feels more like choir practice than a soccer game." The other problem is that our seats were too low... We spent most of the second half in seats 10 rows higher, away from the cheerleaders and with a better view on the game. That helped.
During the first season, the team was so mediocre that I think it went for something like three games without scoring a single goal. Maybe the fans are not used to having a team that completes plays yet? Because yesterday, TFC's defense was pretty good, and Deporto Chivas USA, the (other) L.A. team facing Toronto, never quite had a chance.
At the complete other end of things, I didn't see the Habs game because we were at the Toronto FC game. Toronto FC is the city's Major League Soccer club, the professional North American league, the same league David Beckham kinda plays in when he feels like it. The Toronto fans are known for being the loudest and most supportive in the entire league; probably the only team that has vast delegations travel to other cities to support their team. Now their support is so good that it actually becomes close to meaningless. I was in Section 127, which is inhabited by fan group North End Elite. The chanting was so constant that it actually distracted from the game, and even when the play came in our favour there would be rather little cheering until you basically had a player kicking the ball towards the net. One of the section's cheerleaders spent 95% of his time looking away from the game, facing the section and leading the chants. F really captured the essence: "This feels more like choir practice than a soccer game." The other problem is that our seats were too low... We spent most of the second half in seats 10 rows higher, away from the cheerleaders and with a better view on the game. That helped.
During the first season, the team was so mediocre that I think it went for something like three games without scoring a single goal. Maybe the fans are not used to having a team that completes plays yet? Because yesterday, TFC's defense was pretty good, and Deporto Chivas USA, the (other) L.A. team facing Toronto, never quite had a chance.
