I don't remember hearing the Rangers suck chant much this year. I may have finally tuned it out.
I don't like the disrespect of anthems, or the cursing or any of that stuff either, but unfortunately, that is one of the side effects of a young growing fan base. It's juvenile, but when you get a few drunk college kids together, that's what they find 'funny'. There's really no stopping it. Disrespect, racism, homophobia, etc are all considered clever humor at that age. And it's not just our fans... anyone who plays a couple of games of NHL 13 online can tell you what that age group is like worldwide.
I'm going to attempt to try to come to the defense of the college student a bit here, but depending on your experiences at the games, you might honestly believe that the stupid, childish, heckling of anything and everything is status quo. I recall one idiot in particular I met in the $10 ticket line a few years ago, who thought he was hilarious, but when he told the same 6 jokes over and over every period of every game he's ever been to, that sh!t gets old fast. Yet if you're 17-20 and are new to going to games alone, without parents and the ease of acquiring alcohol, you're gonna get young people who are way too drunk and think that yelling the kind of stupid sh!t they did in high school classrooms for laughs is the thing to do here.
I have a few rules for heckling that I try to keep to.
1. Keep it sports/city/state related. No need to mention someone's mother or gf, just remind those Philly fans that they live in pennsyltucky and that they put a Rocky statue outside the art museum, that should be plenty. If not, mention that their team sucks at playing hockey.
2. If there's kids under the age of 12 within a couple rows, I try not to swear as much(if you bring kids to a sporting event, you know there's gonna be swearing) and will try not to use the "f word" at all. Sitting in the cheapseats for a rivalry game is a bit different than sitting in a suite and usually you feel what's going to be acceptable or not.
3. STFU during the national anthem, Canadian or American. I'M LISTENING TO THE fvckING SONG!!
The idiocy occurs when someone's gotta yell, "hey stupid other fan, you're stupid because you like men and your favorite player does too" just because he's under 25 and way too drunk. The problem is that alcohol and idiocy is an attractive thing to some people and where there's alcohol, there's idiots, so some of this is unavoidable, but some of it is that we need to make sure when people act like idiots, try to either A. Calmly mention to the person that you're trying to watch the game and don't need the commentary, preferably without swears or an insult, not trying to engage the man, just get him to feel embarrassed and shut up. Because if someone doesn't call them out, you might get some other drunk person 6 rows down to high five the guy and vindicate him, giving him the energy to yell at someone for another hour straight(which happened at the last game I went to, idiots).
