The Bandwagon

The playoffs are supposed to bring out the best in sports fans. Having endured a season of highs and lows, of hot streaks and injury troubles, there is the final certainty that their team will continue playing, and the dizzying hope that they will put it all together and win the championship (well, maybe not for Pacers fans this year, but still). Every game has an intensity to it that makes a fan's heart beat 100x times faster, and each day between games seems interminable, the hours stretching by as you continually check for more news about the team. It's a state of concentrated focus, and a state of possibility. And it's a reward for all the time, money and devotion sunk into a team over the course of a season.

Unfortunately, there's a segment of the population that tries to latch onto that feeling, to reap all the rewards with none of the work put in. The bandwagon fans. I can't think of one thing that boils my blood more than to see someone who clearly has no interest in sports, the team, or the very sport itself (for instance, someone not liking hockey) suddenly joining the ranks of true fans.

This sudden rush of new fans when a team is suddenly doing well was probably best exemplified by the Blackhawks playoff run last year and their subsequent season. The Blackhawks were a dead franchise about five years ago, but they changed owners, put the games on TV, welcomed back some famous ex-players, and got Patrick Kane and Jonathon Toews through smart drafting. That brought back some fans, but the city hadn't latched onto the team until they made it to the conference semis in 2009. As the next season started, the city was truly behind the team; and I, as an outside observer and not a die hard Blackhawks fan, saw a group of fans that could finally believe in their team again, and threw themselves into the team. It was acceptable after the Dark Ages of Blackhawks hockey. But when the playoffs rolled around that goodwill died for me and plenty of other fans as the next wave of bandwagon fans joined in. People who couldn't tell you what offsides was or name any player on an opposing team were starting to post facebook statuses, wear t-shirts, get lower bowl seats to home games, and then eventually party with the rest of Chicago when they won it all. How is that fair?

My level of disgust reached a new high this year being surrounded by the Blackhawks bandwagon fans. The Blackhawks struggled for a playoff spot all year, leaving all those bandwagon fans not paying attention and writing them off, writing themselves off as fans- "I never liked hockey anyway." Once they clinched the 8 seed, they came back. They went down 3-0 in the series, and it seemed like they were gone for good. School was bereft of Hawks jerseys except for diehards, facebook and twitter were noticeably absent of any Hawks updates in between my personal storm of Sabres updates. The Blackhawks won two straight games and some started crawling back, building up to a tipping point when Game 6 hit. When the Blackhawks eventually pulled it out in overtime, suddenly, all the Blackhawks "fans" were back! Presto! They'd reappeared!

Ugh. I made my disgust known to every bandwagon fan I could find. Finally, someone asked me, "What's the problem, Evan? Why can't I just support the city? Is there such a problem with that?"

Yes, yes there is a problem. A lot of people talk about how some teams "deserve" a championship, or a playoff win, or whatever. Well that's crap. No team deserves anything more than anyone else, no matter what the history of the team is (I've learned that fact the hard way). But there are fans who deserve to have the joy of championship, and they deserve to enjoy it with other real fans. The people who have actually paid attention, those who know the ins and outs of their team and all the players, all those little funny stories that a team acquires over a season. Those are the fans who should be reveling in the glory of a championship. Sports is an all or nothing investment of time. You're in, or you're out. There can't be an in between, you can't just be in when it's good to be in it. And that's what infuriates me so much.

Maybe its jealousy- maybe I know that I can't remove myself from a sinking ship, that I can't just wait for things to get better before I care again. There are people who don't like sports, and I'm willing to accept that. There are people who don't follow sports as deeply as I and many other people do, but sill make a concerted effort to at least pay attention to their teams, and I respect that, especially if its not their favorite sport, or they don't have the time to keep up obsessively. But to try and leech off on the special feeling real fans get in the playoffs, when they're firing on all cylinders and the fanbase is too much for me. I can only hope that when the time comes that they celebrate their championship, they know that it's empty compared to the feeling every real fan has.

Also, I'm going to try and write more frequently. Sorry, it's been a while, plenty of other time commitments. At least I was able to unload this screed.