My husband and I are big Sharks fans, and what a time to be fans of this particular team! They’re on fire this year and we’ve had the good fortune to go to a few games and get good seats.
I’m not exaggerating - every single time we’ve sat in the better sections, there have been people behind us who chatter to each other nonstop and completely ignore the game. Why in hell do they do this? Those seats are expensive! There are hundreds if not thousands of Sharks fans who are drooling for those seats. If you just want to jabber and gossip and text message, there are lots of cheaper, quieter places to do it than a thunderous arena.
We were at a game two nights ago, and a couple of young guys in business suits were behind us. As far as I could see, they utterly ignored the game. They were deeply involved in the business idea of one of them - to finance a sports bar that duplicated a tailgate experience, complete with tailgates and individual barbecues. I wanted to ask them if their customers would ignore the games televised in that bar just like them. Part of why they were so annoying is that both of them had voices exactly like Donny’s in The Big Lebowski. My husband and I kept repeating lines like “Phone’s ringin’, Dude”, and “Those are good burgers, Walter” quite loudly, but they were too deep into their business meeting to hear us.
May or may not be the case here, but those awesome seats have a very good chance of being owned by businesses rather than individuals.
My company has very good season tickets to every professional sport in town, and the tickets are given to salespeople (or execs) who then take our clients out on the town. I doubt very much that anyone really enjoys the game – they go for a chance to talk with clients.
My pet peeve on this topic is when a business has a block of seats, (as in Beadalin’s post), and then whoever is in charge of the tickets LEAVES THEM IN THEIR FREAKIN DESK DRAWER. I have known organizations that basically say “these tickets are an executive perk. If no executive wants to go to the game, then tough luck for anyone else”. At least they could give them to a kid’s minor hockey organization or something.
But no. They’d rather that nobody enjoy the tickets.
They left after the second period and missed a Sharks win in overtime, BTW. Putzes.
Euphonious Polemic, the occasions that we’ve gotten good seats is entirely due to my employer, a law firm, who doesn’t pull that crap. Anytime they aren’t able to use their seats, they send round an e-mail that day offering them up to the first responder. I’m pretty fast and usually nab them.
Move to Chicago, Detroit, NYC, any of the northern cities really. San Jose isn’t a hockey hotbed, never will be, and yep, the businesses that own those seats don’t appreciate what they have.
I’m not much of a Hawks fan (I bleed Rangers blue), but last week I went to three games in the span of 8 days:
Predators on the 11th, Rangers on the 16th (go Blue! 3-2 in OT), and Monday the 19th with the Wild.
The first game, the vendor’s tickets were 15 rows off the ice, behind a goal. Couple of giggly teenage girls behind us talking but they were talking to one girls dad, trying to learn the game. Encountered very few of the people you had experienced.
The last two were vendors that rented executive suites for customers. Between 15-25 people each time, and unless you had one of the stadium seats in front of the box, you could almost not see the game because everyone was standing behind those seats, trying to watch. Maybe 2-3 people sitting on the couches, but even they were watching on the flat screen.
I lurve hockey! I don’t know much about it but it is my favorite live sport to watch. It is very fast and exciting! I don’t have a favorite team or anything and I learned at one game that this is a very dangerous attitude to have in a hockey arena.
My friend and I scored tickets to the Dallas Stars game and since I enjoy watching hockey and she enjoys large groups of men we decided to make a night of it. We got there and everyone was rooting for the Stars. We felt bad for the Oilers so we cheered for them so they wouldn’t feel left out. We only did that once though because a group of people in front of us turned around with their green and silver face paint and hockey sticks and invited us to shut the hell up. Apparently you are not allowed to have a love of the game without a love of your local team.
I dispute that San Jose will never be a hockey hotbed. The fans here are as loyal and rabid as any. Give it some time, the nimrods who shouldn’t be going to games will be weeded out.
Nah, non-fans will always occupy prime seats, whatever the sport.
A few years back I splurged for really good box seats at Fenway Park, and there was what looked like a group outing of the IT department from Chuck E. Cheese a couple rows over. The entire game, they were turned away from the action jabbering at each other and taking flash photos.
Fill up the goddamn luxury boxes, where your behavior won’t bug the other non-fans.
For some people, the idea of going to the game, and the ability to say “We went to the game,” is more important than actually being at and watching the game itself. Sad but true.
Back in my CA days, the lovely (and non-posting anymore) Sue Duhnym floated my then wife and I tickets to a game at the Shark Tank. There was some lady sitting in front of us, who would blurt out, on the order of every 2 minutes, in this irritating, grating, baby-voice …
“Go Fishies!”
Oh, if ever a rogue puck in the gob was warranted.
I can top you and go off-topic all in one amusing anecdote.
Many years ago, Max Roach was giving a concert. Not with a band – just ol’ Max by his lonesome. The auditorium was packed to the gills, and there was real electricity in the air. During the middle of one of his solos, a woman up in the balcony shouted “Africa!” at the top of her lungs.
You know that reputation Canadians have for being quiet and polite? Come watch us at a hockey game when someone is talking and ignoring the game and getting on other fans’ nerves. You DO NOT IGNORE THE HOCKEY.
That said, I’m a lacrosse fan. If you like fast, furious sports action, lacrosse has it all over hockey.
I find lacrosse hard to watch. Any game where it’s legal to chase a guy up the field hitting him repeatedly in the head with a stick is just hard to process.
The talking I can handle. Really. It’s the getting up to go to the can while the puck is in play that frosts my cinnamon bun. I don’t care how bad you have to go, wait for a stoppage in play. If you have to go that bad, you should have went at the LAST stoppage in play.
I’ve been watching a little indoor lacrosse, as San Jose has a team, and I liked it. However, the Stealth suck. Then I saw a game of outdoor college lacrosse, and I loved that. It was far faster and more exciting, and in addition, the goalies didn’t wear those bizarrely enormous shoulder pads.
I do have to admit that we were at a game once where some kid sitting behind us puked on our seats. All of us in that section of seats basically ran for the bathroom. Only time I ever got up during play. Kid had been complaining all night of a stomach ache so what does mom do? Gets him cotton candy and ice cream.
This of course is when, you know, I could afford to go to NHL games and all. sigh
My experiences there have always been that it’s a very subdued crowd that in no way matched my hockey watching experiences in other cities.
The last Sharks game I went to, the seats were in the upper deck, and as a longtime hockey fan I was watching the action intently. As the puck went into the near corner boards where I couldn’t see it, I leaned forward in my seat to get a better look.
Two guys behind me tapped me on the shoulder and told me to sit back in my seat b/c they couldn’t see the action. Shocked, I explained that I will try but cannot guarantee that if I can’t see the puck I’m not going to lean forward instinctively. The hell? What action? They couldn’t see anything either. Doesn’t everyone lean forward, or stand up, in that situation?
Plus everyone gets excited at the wrong times - loud noise as puck hits the plexiglass? Hooray! Guy missed his check and loudly crashes into the boards? Shouting! Sharks on a 2-on-4? Loud cheering, followed by dejected “ohhhs!” as the play is, of course, broken up.
