Fandom... Gone too far??

   Its not usually my style to write about the issues that are being blasted all over ESPN and Good Morning America but living in the Philadelphia region I do feel really strongly about this one. With fights happeneing at every game in the NFL and 7,000 fans a years being throw out of games in 2011. That may not sound like alot considering there are 2.8 million fans a year who attend games accross the NFL.

    This weekend was marred by "bad" fandom in the NFL and MLB. At the Atlanta Braves game this weekend you had an umpire completely blow an "Infield fly rule" call that may have cost the Braves a shot to make it past MLB's new 2 wildcard single game playoff round. After the call, the field was riddled with debris and led to a delay of the game for about 10-15 mins. As the grounds crew scrambled to clean it up the fans just kept throwing it on the field. Eventually the game restarted with St. Louis winning and as soon as the final out was recorded they ran quickly off the field as beer bottles and cans rained to from every section of the stands.

      Now lets get down to brass tacks. On sunday during the Kansas City Chiefs VS. Baltimore Ravens in the 4th qtr of a 9-6 game, Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel was sandwiched between 2 Baltimore defenders immediatley after throwing a pass. He laid on the ground motionless and the Chiefs fans began to cheer. Now Cassel has not had the best numbers since coming over from New England. He still doesn't deserve that. I think Chiefs lineman Eric Winston said it best, "We are athletes, OK? We are athletes. We are not gladiators. This is not the Roman Coliseum. Matt Cassel hasn’t done anything to you people."

     Now here in Philly we have had our share of fan related incidents. From cheering Michael Irvins broken neck to throwing batteries and ofcourse (the way over blown) snowballs at Santa fiasco. But I can not remember one of our own players laying on the ground litterally motionless and us cheering like he scored a touchdown. That is just wrong. I am in no way saying all 70,000 fans were cheering but it was def enough to hear it clearly over the broadcast.

    It all boils down to teams and leagues letting fans party too much at the games. There is absolutley no reason when a team has a game at 8:30 PM that the parking lot is open at 8 AM for people to tailgate. 12 hours of drinking outside in the parking lot before you even make it into the game (if you make it into the game) then having 3 or 4 more beers inside the game is a little bit of overkill. I know that the all 4 major sports leagues do have rules like no selling beer after the 7th inning in the MLB, after the 3rd quater in the NFL and 2nd period in the NHL. I just do not feel its enough. I know the NFL is dressing security guards in opposing jerseys to try and bait fans into doing something stupid (which is also wrong). I myself feel till the NFL will continue to have problems with fans as long as they allow the glorified Fraternity parties in the parking lot.

     

NHL players in Europe? Good or Bad?

    With the NHL locked out right now you have some players trying to stay in game shape by going over seas. Bryz and Vorachek in the KHL, Briere, Giroux, and Simmonds in Germany and so on and so on. Now the owners are wanting the players to take a cut of the revenue money they get now. Players dont want to cave. I can honestly say I do not blame them. They are the ones out there leaving there blood, sweat and tears out on the ice.

    Now when it comes to players going over to Europe to play during the lockout, this is a sour subject for me. I understand when you are playing a physical sport like hockey that you want to stay at top physical conditioning but to go play in Russia, a country that has a reputation for having unsafe and outdated airplanes, in a league where an entire team was lost in a horrific plane crash (Lokomotiv Yaroslavl's plane went down shortly after take off on September 7, 2011 near Yaroslavl).

    Then you also have to consider the injury factor. Just this week the Flyers had Jakub Voracek injury his knee playing in the KHL. Over here in the states we were hearing confliting reports. Voraceks agent Petr Sbovda said he had a very mild knee sprain and would miss one week but sources said Voracek was telling his teammates that his knee was injured worse then his agent was saying. Then Lev Praha (Voracheks KHL team in Prague) announced that he has a ligament sprain and will miss atleast 4 weeks. See this is what scares me about players under NHL contracts playing over there. With teams not allowed to talk to players over there who knows if the teams are going to get the truth about injuries, and will the european teams be more inclined to play down a players injury since they are essentially just rentel players anyway?

     I sure hope that the NHL and the NHLPA can work out a deal sooner rather than later before someone gets a serious injury and when the season does finally start his NHL team is going to be the one to suffer. Sadly I hate to say I do not know what its going to take to get it done. Atleast the NFL got the referees contract done because of a wrong call made on Monday night football. I do not see this stalemate coming to and end anytime soon.