San Jose Hockey Fans Boo Canadian National Anthem
By Daniel Miessler on May 15th, 2006: Tagged as America | Culture | Sport
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — San Jose Sharks fans loudly booed the Canadian national anthem Sunday night before Game 5 of their team’s second-round playoff series with the Edmonton Oilers.
I find this disgusting, and I can’t help wonder what the average I.Q. and level of education was in this stellar crowd. I’ll bet it was in line with an average small, third-world villiage with little electricity or potable water. They’re mouthbreathers (the people in the crowd, not the people in the villiage).
I’m growing very tired of ignorant people. I think they should identify those who did the booing (video?) and restrict every one of them from going to NHL games for a year. I say that only because it’s not legal to sterilize or shoot them.
The funny thing is that I don’t have to worry about the people who did this seeing this post and getting angry. Why?
Because they don’t read blogs.
If they did read blogs, or otherwise spent any amount of time online instead of watching DVDs and reproducing, they wouldn’t be booing during another country’s national anthem.
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This just in: my local sports team is better than your local sports team. ;) Seriously, though, I see your point. However, antagonizing the opposing team is just a part of sports. In particular, I think of the enmity between UGA and Georgia Tech (rocks were thrown at some point by GT students at a UGA bus. Rocks with carefully planned trajectories.) There’s a bronze statue on the GT campus of some past dean or president. It’s life size, and he’s sitting on a bench, holding a fedora in his hands. I stuck my head behind the fedora once to see what was on the inside. There, in the brim, are the words “To Hell with Georgia.” I assume it was actually on the real hat. The point is that it was a very intelligent man who had that in his hat. It’s not a matter of being a mouth-breather (in all cases)–it’s a matter of competition.
Comment by Jason Powell — 5/15/2006 @ 10:21 am
Antagonizing someone’s team or school is one thing… but debasing national pride is another entirely.
The whole “To Hell with Georgia” thing is actually a traditional taunt that Tech has used for years — In the student center, there’s a picture of a bulldog wearing a t-shirt that has the phrase inscribed in traditional GT colors (black on yellow). Perhaps it’s a little harsh, but it’s not destroying property, and it’s not insulting an entire country.
I don’t think it’s right to write off some things as “school spirit” or “team pride” when there’s more at stake than the pride of the opposing team. I think sometimes sports fans go too far (like booing the opposition’s national anthem) and write it off as “spirit”.
Comment by Tim — 5/15/2006 @ 11:12 am
I can see some gentle booing, even of a national anthem, in certain cases. But given the current political climate and the fact that this was an actual human singing the anthem, it’s just unacceptable.
It’s not like it was a recording and there were no Canadians there; that would have been different. This, in my view, was a direct message that said, “We are ignorant Americans who think we’re better than everyone else. We don’t like you or your stupid, inferior country.”
When you boo a team that’s competition, but when you boo a singer doing a national anthem you’ve crossed the line. Plain and simple.
If we were to go somewhere and have some young person come out and sing the star spangled banner, only to have it get boo’d by that country’s fans, we’d be ready to riot.
Comment by Daniel — 5/15/2006 @ 11:24 am
Why would IQs be lower in a third-world village? An seriously, what about blog reading (as opposed to DVD watching) implies that they wouldn’t boo a national anthem? Its not that I don’t see a connection (Blogs/Online media are cooler(in the McLuhian-sense)/more-interactive, don’t feed you information whilst your brain rots; leading one to think that blog readers would be more intelligent, which somehow says they wouldn’t be so rude/insensitive). Seriously though, do you actually think that goes without saying?
Comment by William — 5/15/2006 @ 12:35 pm
William,
People in small villiages tend to dislike, and usually battle on a pretty regular basis, the villiages next to them. It’s pretty standard behavior. IQ is environmental, and as such, those with a poor environment usually end up with poor IQs. Don’t read too much into it, man. Nothing is being said about the people themselves; it’s all about environment. That’s why I mentioned education and lack of potable water. :) Not that smart people don’t act like idiots to their neighbors, but it’s quite a bit more prevalent among those who haven’t been educated at all. Anyway, my post was inflamitory and I’d rather not defend it as if it weren’t. While there’s definitely truth to what I said, it’s also a bit brash. So for that I apologize. :)
As for bloggers being some sort of uber-elite intellectual group, I agree with you there too — they aren’t. But I would offer that most people who read a lot of blogs might also read a lot of other stuff as well. And as such, they probably have a better chance of not being so ignorant as to boo someone singing their national anthem at a sports event — especially in the current political climate.
Comment by Daniel — 5/15/2006 @ 12:50 pm
I think that’s where the real discussion is to be had - why (and how) are bloggers different? Make no mistake, I think that as internet replaces television as the primary source of peoples’ sources of news, product information etc., we could see a huge cultural change. Maybe I’m a bit OT now, but I just was hoping for a little more between the lines.
Comment by William — 5/15/2006 @ 4:24 pm
I think blogging reflects the hacker mentality — that information should be freely shared.
Also, it takes work to write a blog (as an author) or filter out the blogs that are worth reading (as a reader). People of higher intelligence are more willing to do that work in order to acquire knowledge.
Furthermore, I salute your willingness to start an intellectual “argument” of sorts. It’s mentally stimulating to view other sides of an argument, perhaps admit you’re wrong (or prove that you’re right), and learn someone else’s point of view.
As far as I’m concerned, I don’t really think we’ve gone off-topic. Most of daniel’s posts are meant to spur intellectual debate among the readers (and the author, of course).
Comment by Tim — 5/15/2006 @ 5:52 pm