Flames, planes and waffles: a history of angst
Fans are quick to show their displeasure, often using some rather original methods
As has become tradition, not long after Kevin Durant announced he would be leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors, fans burned his jersey. There was also evidence they burned Tshirts, and other merchandise bearing his name, in protest. It happened to LeBron James when he left Cleveland six years ago. Spurned football fans in St. Louis burned their jerseys earlier this year after the Rams announced they were off to Los Angeles. One day, teams might start selling branded matches and gasoline.
Angry sports fans protest, and sometimes in ways that do not include flammables. Here, the Star recalls five notable manifestations of fan angst:
SUBBAN AND A STATUE
Last Wednesday, with embers of fan anger still glowing hot after the Montreal Canadiens traded defenceman P.K. Subban to the Nashville Predators, protests erupted all across the various social media platforms. At least one user posted a photo of what appeared to be a Canadiens jersey burning on the ground.
Another protest surfaced online a little while later, with a photo of a jersey allegedly left at the Jean Beliveau statue outside the Bell Centre in Montreal. A message was written in black ink: “The worst trade since Patrick Roy. Hoping PK Subban thrives in Nashville!”
The team has confirmed someone did leave a jersey at the statue. A team spokesman told the Star security footage also revealed the protest was only in place for about 40 minutes: “Somebody else walking on the street grabbed the jersey and left with it.”
HIGH-FLYING ANGST
It was November 1978, and the New York Giants were lousy. They had forced their fans to endure 15 years without a single trip to the NFL playoffs, and the fans were upset. So they organized, meeting for breakfast after an advertisement appeared in a local paper.
“We wanted to do something that would truly get the Giants’ ownership to take notice,” Peter Valentine, a New Jersey lawyer, later wrote in The New York Times. “Burning a ticket? Not enough. Staying away?”
They chartered a plane. In the third quarter of a home game against St. Louis, on Dec. 10, the plane flew over the stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., with a protest banner: “15 Years of Lousy Football — We’ve Had Enough.”
The Giants noticed. They beat St. Louis to snap a six-game losing streak and, soon, they shuffled their front office. They won the Super Bowl nine years later.
RADIO SILENCE
In the summer of 2014, football fans in Buffalo stood united against one common threat: Jon Bon Jovi, the one-time hair rocker from New Jersey.
Many reports linked Bon Jovi to a Toronto group in the running for the Buffalo Bills. If the Canadians — with MLSE chair Larry Tanenbaum and Rogers Communications deputy chair Edward Rogers — were to win, the thinking went that the Bills would be on the move.
“Man, f--- Bon Jovi!” former Bills receiver Andre Reed said, in New York Magazine. “You might as well just take this city, throw it in the river, and let it go down Niagara Falls.”
Restaurants and bars across West- ern New York moved swiftly to ban all Bon Jovi songs from the premises. He disappeared from the radio. Fans enforced the ban enthusiastically, and by the end of the summer, Bon Jovi had backed out as the Toronto bid collapsed.
FOWL MOOD
In the spring of 2012, Blackburn Rovers, a former English soccer champion with historic ties to the country’s top tier of competition, was failing. Blackburn was trolling the deep end of the standings as it hosted Wigan in an important game near the end of the season.
Two years earlier, the club had been purchased by an Indian-based company specializing in poultry products. Blackburn was the first Premier League team to be sold to an Indian company.
Management changed. Familiar faces left. The team began to sink, with fans angry at the new owner- ship. That frustration drew international attention the day Wigan visited — and a live chicken was sent onto the field. Blackburn lost, relegated to a lower division.
“Sadly, this was a chronicle of a death foretold,” Henry Winter wrote in The Telegraph. “No leadership. No unity. Owners without a clue.”
REVENGE SERVED COLD
In early December 2010, the Toronto Maple Leafs had settled back down near the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings, with another dreary winter ahead. Out of nowhere — well, out of somewhere in the platinum seats, anyway — an unusual protest was launched.
During a 4-1loss to the Philadelphia Flyers at Air Canada Centre, a fan launched several frozen waffles onto the ice. One reportedly hit Leafs defenceman François Beauchemin.
“Who brings waffles to a hockey game?” Leafs forward Colby Armstrong asked. “Had we won the game, was he going home with soggy waffles? I don’t know. I don’t appreciate it, really, a guy throwing waffles at me as I’m skating by.”
Or, as Cam Cole of The Vancouver Sun tweeted: “A waffle is an odd missile to throw at Leafs when they’re playing like crepe.”