At the risk of ruining some truly heartfelt and grade-A sucking up, the hockey game I attended last night by the good graces of Sue Duhnym brings up this question.
First of all, I need to say, that while the person I sat next to at the San Jose Sharks hockey game was annoying, I still had a great time. But at times I wanted to cross check her into the beer stand.
She was an arm-chair coach with an extremely limited arsenal of advice for the team.
Her schtick:
My father and I attended the occasional high school football game. Dad had a philosophy of seating where you were supposed to sit in the visitor’s section during home games because it’s so much less crowded. :rolleyes: So…we got to sit right in front of of trio of schmendricks from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School – two guys, one girl – who kept up a badinage of drolleries and witticisms.
Girl: “What are these guys called – the Blue Jays?” (idiot – it’s the Blue Devils)
Guy: “The Blue Fags!” (punchline delivered in a moronic monotone)
Man, was I pleased to see CR&L dismembered on the playing field…
I have season tickets to Purdue football games, so when I am next to someone it is usually for the whole season.
This year I had the big butt couple in front of me. Now this is not my primary beef. The women would sit really far back in her seat. I then either have my knees in my chest if I keep my legs closed, or I get a 4-quarter lap dance if I spread my legs for more room. I looked and the guy in front of her wasn’t sitting far back and she did have room. When I did ask her to move forward she would, but she would slowly scoot back, so I gave up. The other thing with these folks is during the game they would break out a couple of these Hidden Valley Ranch dipping cups and a bag of pork rinds. The smell of pork rinds being dipped into warm ranch sauce in a hot stadium is just too much.
Last year I had this sweaty guy who took his shirt off in front of me. He had a shaven head with a Purdue tattoo on it; a pencil eraser shaped mole on the left side of his lower back, and a WWJD armband on. Through 4 quarters I would have him rocking back and forth in his seat in front of me with his mole repeatedly touching my knee. I could see the mole squishing slightly from the contact. My friend next to me finally noticed the guy’s wristband and asked, “WWJD?” I exploded and yelled, “I think he would wear a fricken shirt!” Finally it got cold out so the shirt did come back on.
Now I’m not saying that if you are large and have moles you should stay out of stadiums, but please be aware of the space of other people.
I had the distinct joy of attending the White Sox/Tigers game last year when they had the fifteen hour bench clearing brawl, wherein I swear to you, ten more seconds and the first five rows of the crowd would have been in the fray.
I am not a Sox fan. My husband is a Tigers fan and I am a Cubs fan. He was rooting for the Tigers, I was rooting for the Tigers. We were given excellent seats, in what I can only presume was a “season ticket holders” section. Across from me was a couple, probably in their early fifties, the wife decked out in white sox shirt, shorts, hat, EARRINGS, face paint and flag.
each and every time i said something to the effect of “Go Tigers” or “Nice hit” or whatever, she would look at me, then at her husband AND MIMIC IT BACK IN A SARCASTIC TONE.
Jarbaby: Nice hit
Psycho fan: oh…NICE HIT
and then she’d giggle to herself and her husband. finally, when the real fights broke out on the field she stood up, pointed at me and said “FUCK YOU DETROIT”. I said,
“I don’t even care bitch, I’m a cubs fan.”
HER HUSBAND ACTUALLY HELD HER BACK FROM COMING AFTER ME. What’s the story? Can’t take the heat of someone rooting for another team? I wasn’t bothering her…hell I wasn’t even looking at her. She swore at me, I swore back and she was ready to throw down.
My husband shook his head and said,
“I wish you’d stop picking fights with suburbanites.”
Many years ago, when the Toronto Blue Jays were still playing at Exhibition Stadium, I was at a game. It was April and the NHL hockey season was still going, with the Toronto Maple Leafs fighting (as usual) for a playoff berth. The guy next to me had a small battery-powered TV set on which he had the hockey game.
No problems there, until the Jays game got close. When all of us baseball fans cheered something on the field in front of us, he’d tell us to keep it down; that he couldn’t hear the hockey game!
Thankfully, nobody paid any attention to his pleas. But his whining was irritating, especially since his complaint made no sense–why didn’t he just stay at home to watch the Leafs if he wanted to see their game so badly?
I was covering a girls’ basketball game between Menlo-Atherton High and Burlingame last week. Sitting near me was a Burlingame parent who wanted to call a foul on Menlo-Atherton every two seconds. “Where’s the foul?” he would yelp in that grating, how-could-you-DO-this-to-me? tone of voice. He also noticed that Menlo-Atherton’s #21 is their best shooter, so he kept yelling to the team to guard #21 – as if the girls out on the court couldn’t figure this out on their own without his astute advice. So he’s getting all obsessed about the importance of guarding #21, and I finally turn to him and say:
When I wrestled in college in northern CA many years ago, some members of my team were invited to compete in a series of matches against a touring Japanese college all-star team. I sat in the bleachers to watch my friends and some great wrestling. Two flamboyantly effeminate gay students sat in front of me. Normally it was hardly notable, except it was a small school and I knew these guys weren’t the type to watch a sporting event.
They loudly ogled each Japanese wrestler and told each other what they’d do with them. Fine, to each his own. But it turned out they had a major axe to grind against the school. Any time a local wrestler got injured, they cheered and squealed with glee.
When one of my teammates got hurt and they started giggling and clapping about it, I wanted to knock both their fucking heads off. It was pissing off quite a few people in the bleachers, too, and with enough recommendations that they shut up, the two finally left. “No big deal,” according to them. “The fatties are the only ones left, and we’ve already seen the bodies we came to see.”
I’m not a big sports fan, but occasionally I attend the Boston Red Sox. I took the kids, as I had good (almost box) seats. Anyway, we are all seated(got peanuts for the kids)and who waddles in but Mr. and mrs. Hogg, who plop down in front of us-they must have weighed at least 600 lbs. between them. Anyway, they managed to chomp down just about every food item available-chili dogs, popcorn, icecream, etc. Listening to their chimping and smacking was just about the most revolting thing I have ever seen.
Boy was i glad when the game got over!
I was at a Los Angeles Kings - Mighty Ducks game at the old Forum and this guy behind was a Ducks fan - which already puts him well off the annoying scale. Well anytime the Ducks did ANYTHING, completed a pass, entered the zone without being offside, getting an icing call, etc. he would let out with…
"Nuh-hice!’
Not, “Nice”… “Nuh-hice!”, turning this one-syllable word into a two-syllable word. Me and my friend started joking around,
Philadephia fans, I learned, deserve their reputations as the rudest in the country. I was rooting for the Rams as they played the Eagles in Philly. Two of the skankiest, sloppiest, white-trashiest female Eagles fans you can imagine were behind me and my pal. One of them notices I’m a Rams fan and says something civil while patting my shoulder sweetly. Okay, I figure. Only after the game did I notice that the b*tch had smeared my shoulder with mustard.
This past baseball season I’m watching a Yankee game in the cheap seats at Yankee Stadium. To our right is two rows of loud, drunken, muscular Long-Island-firemen types carrying on, thinking they own the world. “Blah fckin’ blah this. Blah fckin’ blah that.” On and on, ruining the experience for everyone around. As is always the case in these groups, there is always one alphamale – the loudest, rudest moron of the bunch.
Well, it’s about the seventh inning when Alphamoron flings an empty beer cup or something off the balcony into the seats below us. Now I don’t know about other stadia, but apparently YS has two ironclad rules: 1. NO ONE is allowed to drop stuff into the lower seats, and 2. Cops – real NYPD cops, not glorified ushers – enforce the rules.
So wimpering, apologetic Alphamoron got yanked out of his seat and booted from the game by a no-nonsense pair of NY’s Finest – if front of all of us cheering and applauding bystanders who had to put up with seven innings of his loudmouth b*llshit! Ah, justice is sweeeeet!
As a graduate student, I went to exactly one home football game. It was close to the end of the season, and our team had achieved a “perfect” record (0-11). Since we were playing a local team, there were actually more fans for the opposing team than the home team. Anyway, we sat in the student section and as the game progressed, more and more of the opposing fans infiltrated. Not only was our team losing by about 50 points, but the people behind us booed anytime they did something decent. The game was a total blowout, and yet the other team’s fans felt the need to make fun of anything our team did. Sigh…it was really annoying (and a bit embarrassing).
Sparklo, if thats the game I think it was, the little tarheel kids were even taunting my friends and I in the marching band while we were getting ready for the halftime show, but its ok, we’ll get them back in basketball.
Well, there was the time my dad was given a couple of free tickets to the Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Neither of us like NASCAR much (er, well, at all), but we figured, what the hell, they’re free, and we’ve never seen a race in person before.
These were not the expensive seats. Many of the guys without shirts. Cigarette ashes falling like snow from above and behind. The walkway between the front row and the fence looked to be about 3 feet deep with beer cans.
Oh, and there was the guy who, every time his least favorite driver passed by, flipped the bird at him. No idea which car he was referring to, nor do I suspsect that the driver, had he been able to detect a single extended middle finger among a crowd of thousands while driving over 200 miles per hour, would have concluded it was meant for him. :rolleyes:
I really dislike morons at concerts who not only have to prove that know all the lyrics to every song, but are also convinced that they sound better than the lead singer of whatever band your watching.
I was sitting three rows up from the ice at the Pond for a Ducks/Coyotes game. A bunch of drunk guys in the front row were carrying on like idiots. At one point in the game, one guy was returning from the concessions with a tray full of (more) beers. He was standing up talking to his buddies, blocking the line of sight for me and everyone around me. We were hollering at him to sit down, but he just arrogantly waved us off.
Then, as if planned (and if I didn’t see it with my own two eyes, I wouldn’t believe it myself), two opposing players on the ice lined up a check along the boards that happened to occur right behind this guy. As the plexiglas gave a little on contact, it bumped the guy hard and sent beer flying all over his buddies!
We were all laughing the rest of the evening (even the guy himself had to chuckle about the timing and placement of the check).
