Nottingham Panthers 3:4 Sheffield Steelers - I've seen the future and it aint good
I'm the sort of person who pretty much says yes to everybody, so when I was asked if I wanted to go see the Nottingham Panthers play, yeah, ok.
The last time I went to the Ice Hockey was 24 years ago, in the old wooden rink with the old cinema organ against the Dundee Rockets, the Liverpool of '80's Ice Hockey, who now don't even exist. Nottingham lost.
I've been to the National Ice Arena a couple of times, once to see Coldplay (and even then only because Idlewild were the support) and again to see the Masters Football, which is cracking and is back on a gain in July, I've got my ticket already (thank you again) so get yourself down there.
Firstly, the Hockey was good. I'm sure it's nowhere near as good as that found in North America, but their rejects have got to have somewhere to play. Sheffield were clearly the better side, even to my untrained eye, and quite deservedly won the game, although the 6:3 Panthers advantage from the first leg of the Challenge Cup Final meant an overall aggregate win for the home side.
Which meant the fans were happy.
But that was the problem, the fans.
I'm a huge football fan, been going down Forest for 35 of my meagre 39 years, so I guess I'm use to the way a football crowd works, the dynamics of it all, the singing, the banter, the posturing with mock aggression, the highs & lows, the way the crowd act as one without any prompting.
At the Panthers last night, the fans were constantly battered with sponsorship details, who sponsored the players helmets, the home dug-out, the away penalty box, even something as intangible as the period of power-play had its own sponsor, gleefully read out for the 28th time with no less gusto than the first, and certainly with no hint of irony at the futility of repetition. I won't repeat who sponsored what because, you know what, I stopped listening.
The chanting was more akin to a primary school rounders game and even when the fans started chanting themselves, they had to be helped out by the sounds of an organ, sounding remarkably computerised. Some of the actions to accompany the ever increasing array of 'tunes' coming out of said computer were, frankly, pitiful & embarrassing. Where was the swearing ? Where was the mock aggression ? Oh, there it is, two burly Canadians squaring up to each other for no other reason than momentum on a slippery surface has made them collide. Watch the blood-lust of the fans as they bay to watch two grown men wave hand-bags at each other, both covered in enough padding never to feel a thing before being told where to sit for two minutes. Pathetic. It's like a cross between bingo and World of Sport wrestling.
Clearly this was an attempt to Americanise what was a British Sport years before the Americans picked it up. But I've been to American sporting events in America and they were not as brash or as loud or as corporate as this. We've created a monster.
If this is the sanitised version of how sport is heading, full corporate sponsorship, crowd manipulation, in-bred supporters, then I'm not interested.
The Premiership in a nut-shell.
I'll tell you what, they can shove it.
The last time I went to the Ice Hockey was 24 years ago, in the old wooden rink with the old cinema organ against the Dundee Rockets, the Liverpool of '80's Ice Hockey, who now don't even exist. Nottingham lost.
I've been to the National Ice Arena a couple of times, once to see Coldplay (and even then only because Idlewild were the support) and again to see the Masters Football, which is cracking and is back on a gain in July, I've got my ticket already (thank you again) so get yourself down there.
Firstly, the Hockey was good. I'm sure it's nowhere near as good as that found in North America, but their rejects have got to have somewhere to play. Sheffield were clearly the better side, even to my untrained eye, and quite deservedly won the game, although the 6:3 Panthers advantage from the first leg of the Challenge Cup Final meant an overall aggregate win for the home side.Which meant the fans were happy.
But that was the problem, the fans.
I'm a huge football fan, been going down Forest for 35 of my meagre 39 years, so I guess I'm use to the way a football crowd works, the dynamics of it all, the singing, the banter, the posturing with mock aggression, the highs & lows, the way the crowd act as one without any prompting.
At the Panthers last night, the fans were constantly battered with sponsorship details, who sponsored the players helmets, the home dug-out, the away penalty box, even something as intangible as the period of power-play had its own sponsor, gleefully read out for the 28th time with no less gusto than the first, and certainly with no hint of irony at the futility of repetition. I won't repeat who sponsored what because, you know what, I stopped listening.
The chanting was more akin to a primary school rounders game and even when the fans started chanting themselves, they had to be helped out by the sounds of an organ, sounding remarkably computerised. Some of the actions to accompany the ever increasing array of 'tunes' coming out of said computer were, frankly, pitiful & embarrassing. Where was the swearing ? Where was the mock aggression ? Oh, there it is, two burly Canadians squaring up to each other for no other reason than momentum on a slippery surface has made them collide. Watch the blood-lust of the fans as they bay to watch two grown men wave hand-bags at each other, both covered in enough padding never to feel a thing before being told where to sit for two minutes. Pathetic. It's like a cross between bingo and World of Sport wrestling.
Clearly this was an attempt to Americanise what was a British Sport years before the Americans picked it up. But I've been to American sporting events in America and they were not as brash or as loud or as corporate as this. We've created a monster.
If this is the sanitised version of how sport is heading, full corporate sponsorship, crowd manipulation, in-bred supporters, then I'm not interested.
The Premiership in a nut-shell.
I'll tell you what, they can shove it.
posted by Lucky Col at
4:10 PM
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