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Dreams of "What If?"
Dear Margo: I'm a 20-something woman engaged to the best man I've ever known. I am beyond ecstatic to be getting married. My problem has nothing to do with him and everything to do with a guy who was one of my best friends in college. This guy and I …Read more.
Afraid of Little Girls
Dear Margo: Between the ages of 6 and 10, I was severely bullied, but I was given the impression by grownups that such behavior was perfectly normal for children and I shouldn't be so sensitive. (I now realize they probably did not pay attention to …Read more.
Every Problem Does Not Have a Solution
Dear Margo: Many years ago, I got a call informing me that my son was arrested and being held on $1 million bail. That was when I first learned that he is a pedophile.
He has just completed his 20-year prison sentence, and during that time I learned …Read more.
When You Live on a One-Way Street
Dear Margo: My patience has run out with the three living members of my family. My father, his mother and my brother have gone through periods of not talking to each other or to me. My brother wants nothing to do with my father or our grandmother, …Read more.
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Of Pucks and Drunks
Dear Margo: I'm a huge hockey fan, probably because I adored Peter Forsberg. I used to attend games with my father, but when he died, it hurt to think of being there without him. Recently, an aunt invited me to go with her. I was pleased and offered to pay for good seats, but she insisted we sit in the nosebleed section and she would pay. Margo, I hate those seats, and not because you can't see, but because the fans are drunken brutes. But hesitantly, I agreed.
The night of the game we sat near four college boys who drank more and more as the Avs lost. They were rowdy and crude, and they screamed a lot. Then they disappeared for a while (getting more alcohol, I assume), and a family came in and asked whether those seats were free. I told them no, and that they should keep their distance because the men sitting there were pretty drunk and belligerent. They heeded my advice and sat a few rows away. Well, sure enough, the drunks came back and noticed the family. One of the little boys was wearing a jersey from the opposing team. The college boys swore and yelled and said loudly they should throw the kid over the glass into the lower seats.
This seems to come with the cheap tickets: complementary drunk jerkwads screaming obscenities. I feel like I should have told security. Does security handle this sort of thing often, or are these just sports guys being sports guys? In Colorado, at least, it's always like that, so maybe it's the norm. How do you defuse such a situation? — Cringing in Colorado
Dear Cringe: First of all, hockey is anathema to me. The one time I went to see the Blackhawks, I watched for a while and blurted, "My God, they're on skates!" It is a violent sport, so I'm not surprised the spectators are prone to getting blotto. My guess is that security does handle behavior they deem unacceptable, but, as you say, it may be the norm and therefore "acceptable." The answer for you I would think is to stay out of the nosebleed seats. — Margo, puckishly
Wondering 'What If?'
Dear Margo: A philosophical sociological question for you: Is it wrong of me to think our culture might improve if, when one has caused harm, we had the suicide ethic of ancient Japan? — Moose
Dear Moo: I must admit this thought has occurred to me, as well. Too many people, most often in business or government, have overstepped so egregiously to enrich themselves or to accomplish an evil goal that, on a moral scorecard, the only appropriate compensatory gesture would seem to be to check out. The reasons this will not happen, however, are 1) this was never a part of Western culture, and 2) often the miscreants have rationalized their actions so they feel neither shame nor guilt. (Hence the popularity of the "victimless crime" defense.) The old standby of "everyone does it" has also diluted any sense of accountability.
Occasionally, even now, an Asian businessman who tanks a company will take himself out. ("To fall on one's sword" at one time was, literally, the way an Asian took responsibility for an action about which he felt guilt and remorse.) I can live without people falling on their swords as the ultimate apology, but it would be nice if people who had blundered disastrously or clearly violated trust — public or private — would offer a mea culpa and make a stab at reparation. — Margo, wistfully
Dear Margo is written by Margo Howard, Ann Landers' daughter. All letters must be sent via the online form at www.creators.com/dearmargo. Due to a high volume of e-mail, not all letters will be answered.
COPYRIGHT 2012 MARGO HOWARD
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
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Comments
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37 Comments | Post Comment
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LW1: if you don't like drunks, don't go to hockey games. They seem to congregate there, like geese at a watering hole.
LW2: I'm not sure that I like the fact that Margo posted this letter at all. Having spent a great deal of time in Japan, I feel this is a stereotypical (and wrong) assumption from the West about Japanese culture. It was a tradition during the samurai times (and even then, for the samarai), but the only people who really adhere to it now are the yakuza (mafia). it is NOT considered an honorable alternative for most people (although periodically you do hear about it, just like you do in the West).
As far as it being an option for people like Bernie Maddoff, the BP execs, the governor of Illinois with the funky hair,I don't think it would improve our society or culture AT ALL. If everyone committed mistakes everytime we made a mistake, we'd have noone left because we all make mistakes! Also, to make suicide honorable for these people would allow them some sort of dignity, which I don't believe they deserve. Why should they be praised for killing themselves after hurting people? that's crazy. Two wrongs do NOT make a right.
Margo should have dug deeper into her letter bag this week.
Comment: #1
Posted by: nanchan
Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:31 PM
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Re Moose:
(Apologies if this posts multiple times, am fighting with captcha again)
Take off your nostalgia-tinted glasses. Many of the "honorable" suicides in recorded history were not a matter of choice. The person in question was often facing destitution from being stripped of their rank/job/titles, or (torturous) death from the State or other enemies for themselves and possibly their families.
Modern Western culture typically reserves the death penalty for murder and treason, with various countries even eschewing that. As satisfying as it would be to see various financial crimes so severely punished, it would be tacitly endorsing the idea that a certain amount of money is more valuable than a human life. Ironically, it could also function as the ultimate safeguard against forced financial reparations, as few authorities would be willing to proceed against a grieving family.
Encouraging the ultimate penalty for causing physical disasters also enters a gray area. How many manslaughter-type deaths would be necessary to justify ending the life of the perpetrator? What if the perp's actions cause no actual deaths, but a given number of people are permanently disabled?
Alas, the same mindset that enables such criminal behavior in the first place also enables its rationalization, as Margo already mentioned. This lack of guilt often seems to be over-compensated for by other parties, resulting in cases of misapplied self-termination. Example: A European trader caught in Madoff's pyramid scheme killed himself when all his clients' money evaporated, despite his innocence in the matter. (Future posters please add/correct details as necessary.)
Then there is the question of intent. Should gross incompetency/extreme ignorance be punished at the same level as malice, assuming identical outcomes? Also, what happens if the guilty party bungles the suicide, resulting in a disabled state that renders further attempts impossible? Is an executioner assigned to finish the job?
Like most simple ideas, the implementation is actually extremely complex.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Snarf
Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:44 PM
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Fall on your sword
Commit suicide or offer your resignation.
It's been some time since men routinely carried swords and the use of 'falling on one's sword' is now restricted to the figurative usage when someone takes personal responsibility for a group action. The expression was used widely following the resignation of Lord Peter Carrington, who resigned from his post as Foreign Secretary for the Thatcher government in 1982, following Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands. He was the last high-profile politician in the UK to take personal responsibility in such circumstances.
The actual practise of committing suicide by falling on one's sword dates back to ancient Rome. Plutarch records such a death in <em>The Life of Brutus
"Finally, he [Brutus] spoke to Volumnius himself
in Greek, reminding him of their student life, and
begged him to grasp his sword with him and help him
drive home the blow. And when Volumnius refused, and
the rest likewise ... grasping with both hands the
hilt of his naked sword, he fell upon it and died."
The above account was published in English in 1918. The notion was already current in English in the 16th century. It appears in "The Miles Coverdale Bible", 1535, in an account of the death of Saul - Samuel 31:4-5
"Then said Saul unto his weaponbearer: Draw out thy sword, and
thrust it through me, that these uncircumcised come not and
slay me, and make a laughing stock of me. Nevertheless his
weaponbearer would not, for he was sore afraid. Then took
Saul ye sword, and fell thereon. Now when his weaponbearer saw
that Saul was dead, he fell also upon his sword, and died with him."
Shakespeare alludes to a similar scene, in the death of Mark Antony, in "Julius Caesar", 1601, although he didn't use a version of the 'falling on one's sword' text.
The expression is the Anglicized equivalent of hara-kiri - the Japanese samurai custom of committing suicide by disembowelment with a sword rather than face the dishonor of surrender. The highly ritualized and formal hara-kiri suicide - literally 'belly cut', is no longer performed. It has been known about in the West since the mid 19th century and was referred to in 1856 in "Harper's Magazine" in the title of an article, "Hari-kari of Japan". It that piece Harper's used, and possibly originated, the common misspelling 'hari-kari'.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Nick
Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:54 AM
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Woah, woah, woah... as a hockey fan who has been to plenty of games, let me point out that ALL sports events have their share of rude, rowdy, drunk fans... baseball, football, soccer... heck, you've never had as many riots in the stands for a sport as in international soccer!
There are PLENTY of hockey fans who get excited and cheer without making other people feel bad, and if you watch any hockey game you'll see plenty of fans from the opposing team in the stands unmolested.
Yes, you get the cheap seats, you *knew* you'd be likelier to be next to the drunks. Next time, pay the extra to get better seats and better neighbors.
And... go BRUINS!!!
Comment: #4
Posted by: Mike H
Fri Jan 20, 2012 4:01 AM
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Mike could not have said it better about hockey. You want to see drunks, go to a football game.
Comment: #5
Posted by: Jane
Fri Jan 20, 2012 5:48 AM
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Re: nanchan
Not all hockey fans are drunks and brutes. All you need to do is go to Canada or to college hockey games (NCAA bans alcohol sales at any college sporting event). I've been to several Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens games and had no problems with drunken or rude fans, even though I was rooting for the away teams on a couple of occasions at those games (my dad is a Rangers fan).
In college hockey, it's not as violent. Yeah, you're going to have players slamming members of the other team against the boards (checking), but when it comes to fights, they don't happen that much. In fact, I've noticed that in NHL play, there aren't as many fights there either as there used to be.
So they are doing measures to make hockey more of a sport than a boxing match on skates, and not all venues are tolerant of drunken fans.
Comment: #6
Posted by: Janie
Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:02 AM
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Re: Mike H
You are SO right about football/soccer being the biggest culprit...well, in the past, at least.
I was living in Brussels when the 1985 European Cup came to town. That was one of the worst things I ever saw with 39 people being KILLED and hundred injured at Hesse Stadium. All that because of a football match! There were also several incidents in the UK that caused the rules to change. Now, all stadiums in the UK have seats, and the hooliganism has really subsided, and it's pleasurable to watch a match now.
Now that I'm back in the States, I don't get to watch as much, as I choose not to have cable. However, I'm getting excited about the Man U/Arsenal match on Sunday. I'm pulling for Sir Alex and his boys of Man U. GO RED!
Comment: #7
Posted by: Janie
Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:06 AM
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Re: Mike H
Hey you - go HABS!
@Jane
Or to a baseball game, or to a rock concert. There are obnoxious drunks at all publics venues, especially in the cheap seats. Not likely at the opera, though - I must admit. ;-)
Comment: #8
Posted by: Lise Brouillette
Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:17 AM
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Thanks for that, Nick.
Have any of you read "Shogun: A Novel of Japan" by James Clavell? Beautifully written, beautifully researched eye-opener. I've read it twice - just breath-taking. But I don't think Moose asked the question he really wanted to address. He asked "Is it wrong of me to think...." How can it be "wrong" for anyone to have any opinion? It's how you act on it that matters. While the old Japanese custom of hara-kiri seems extreme to us (Okay, it IS extreme) the idea of having a sense of honor as well as an ethic of making amends for offending someone else's honor, or peace, (I think they called it the "wa") seems regrettably lost. And the custom isn't as long ago as it might seem. Remember the kamikaze pilots of WWII?
Comment: #9
Posted by: Maggie Lawrence
Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:29 AM
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Romans, certainly an influential part of Western Culture, used to regularly "fall upon their swords". It was in fact often the only legal way out of trouble - if you did the honorable thing your family was safe - if you stayed alive to be tried they would take everything.
Comment: #10
Posted by: Mylo
Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:48 AM
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Re: Janie
Actually, I WAS talking about Canadian hockey.
My current city does not have a prohockey team, although when I lived in So. Cal, they were all over the place. My local team in CA had a pretty civilized fan base, but still, lots of drunks. I loved to go to games with my brothers because for me, part of the fun is people watching and I'm not afraid of drunks.
When I moved here, I would go to Canada for the pro games and was SHOCKED that people were taking kids to the games. I've never seen any sporting event filled with more rude, drunk, beligerent people in my LIFE! I saw more arrests at one game in Canada than I've seen in all my life at any sport event in the US.
Mike, I have never been to a pro football game, so I'll have to take your word for it.
I've been going to baseball games all my life (a cousin was a very well known pro player, so we actually traveled to see him one year a few times: he was in baseball for 20 years) and again, I never saw the type of behavior there that I saw at the Canadian hockey games I have been to. Mostly because a lot of baseball games are during the day and are outside? I don't know. Just didn't see the type of behavior.
It doesn't mean I don't GO, just that it's pretty well known that hockey fans can get pretty beligerent.
Comment: #11
Posted by: nanchan
Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:59 AM
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Re: Maggie Lawrence
Kamikase are TOTALLY different. they volunteered to go into battle and die for love of their country, not because they were digraced.
They are more along the lines of Muslims suicide bombers of today.
Shogun is a novel close to my heart (I read the whole thing in three days while in labor!) but it is a NOVEL written by a Westerner. It is not fact.
Comment: #12
Posted by: nanchan
Fri Jan 20, 2012 9:03 AM
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Threatening to throw a small child over the glass is over the top and is not the "norm" ever. For anyone to say otherwise is a brute.
Comment: #13
Posted by: Stacia
Fri Jan 20, 2012 9:45 AM
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Re: Snarf
Seems like we need to adopt the concept of morally ill.
Comment: #14
Posted by: Linda Dorfmont
Fri Jan 20, 2012 10:08 AM
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@nanchan, regarding baseball, for a completely different experience, all you need to do is go to Yankee Stadium during a Yankee-Red Sox game, in the cheapest seats, wearing a Red Sox jersey, and then get back to me about how "belligerent" the hockey fans are!!!
Just sayin' -- each sport does indeed have loud, scary, drunk fans, and I've met some truly awful baseball fans in my time.
Comment: #15
Posted by: Mike H
Fri Jan 20, 2012 10:55 AM
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Mike: I'm a west coast girl. getting me to go an east coast anything is going to be difficultimpossible unless someone gives be box seats, airfare and a suite at some swanky hotel. East coast people tend to be more emotional about things in general (excepting the South) and that's cool, just not the way I roll.
So, no, I don't know about it, but really have no desire to see it at all.
Comment: #16
Posted by: nanchan
Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:12 AM
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nanchan, I know that Shogun was fiction - of course! - but are you saying that his portrayal of 16th century Japan is not accurate within the bounds of his story?
Comment: #17
Posted by: Maggie Lawrence
Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:18 AM
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@nanchan, if you did do this, you'd have a *completely* different opinion about the lack of drunken belligerence at baseball games, no question.
@lise, Habs vs. Bruins is one of the oldest rivalries in professional sports, period! Bring it! :-)
Comment: #18
Posted by: Mike H
Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:33 AM
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LW1 -- As others at the BTL have noted, this kind of behavior can occur at just about sporting event or, for that matter, almost any sort of pubic gathering in which there is some sort of competition going on, and the audience takes sides. But just because it can happen -- and does, somewhat often -- doesn't make it "normal" or OK. And yes, security handles this kind of thing all the time -- that's their job. There is no good, SAFE way for an "innocent bystander" to defuse the situation, as the more likely result of that is for one side or the other to turn on the bystander. The only right way to handle this is to go to security and inform them of what is going on so they can do their jobs. Arenas and the like are too big for security to always know exactly where there may be trouble brewing, so a good samaritan can safely help out by letting security know when a problem is happening.
Comment: #19
Posted by: Lisa
Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:35 AM
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Whoops -- obviously that was supposed to read "this kind of behavior can occur at just about ANY sporting event."
Comment: #20
Posted by: Lisa
Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:37 AM
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@nanchan -- definitely agree that Margo should have dug a little deeper into her mailbag. In fact, I feel that way about BOTH of these letters. Seriously, the first LW just needs to be told "next time, call security" and I, personally, am completely uninterested in discussing whether modern Western culture would be better off if it patterned itself after ancient Japan.
Comment: #21
Posted by: Lisa
Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:41 AM
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LW1, next time you're at the Pepsi Center for a home Avs game, bring your cell phone. Having attended some games, I know the Center has a Fan SOS program, with the following instructions:
Fans experiencing displeasure at any Pepsi Center event due to unpleasant, rowdy, harassing, or otherwise obnoxious fans in their seating section can text their seat location and issue to Pepsi Center personnel. Your text
will be replied to and Event Staff will respond to your seating section.
Text: FANSOS, your seat location, and issue to 69050.
Comment: #22
Posted by: Nuge
Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:55 AM
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Sorry, I should've put the FanSOS instructions in quotation marks since I lifted the para directly out of the "Pepsi Center Fan Guide: An A-Z Directory of Arena Services for Our Guests."
Comment: #23
Posted by: Nuge
Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:58 AM
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Re: Nuge
Sorry, I should've included quotation marks around the instructions for the FanSOS since I took the para directly out of the "Pepsi Center Fan Guide: An A-Z Directory of Arena Services for Our Guests."
Comment: #24
Posted by: Nuge
Fri Jan 20, 2012 12:05 PM
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@maggie lawrence -- I read all of Clavell's Asia-based novels, so I'm a huge fan. And while I realize they are all works of fiction, I do believe he did a lot of research in order to create a fiction that does align with the history of the culture of the different countries in Asia about which he wrote. Although Sho-gun was about Japan a long time ago and many, many things have changed since then, I do believe [BIG WHOPPING GENERALIZATION ALERT!] that the Eastern approach to life and the value of human life is still very different from that of the West. Indeed, wasn't there a Chinese official who killed himself after some sort of major error on his part, just in the last year or so? I'm not saying it happens all the time in the East and never happens here in the West (a year or two ago, a credit union official killed himself just after his role in an embezzlement scheme came out) -- but I would guess it happens more often in the East.
Comment: #25
Posted by: Lisa
Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:26 PM
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@maggie lawrence -- I read all of Clavell's Asia-based novels, so I'm a huge fan. And while I realize they are all works of fiction, I do believe he did a lot of research in order to create a fiction that does align with the history of the culture of the different countries in Asia about which he wrote. Although Sho-gun was about Japan a long time ago and many, many things have changed since then, I do believe [BIG WHOPPING GENERALIZATION ALERT!] that the Eastern approach to life and the value of human life is still very different from that of the West. Indeed, wasn't there a Chinese official who killed himself after some sort of major error on his part, just in the last year or so? I'm not saying it happens all the time in the East and never happens here in the West (a year or two ago, a credit union official killed himself just after his role in an embezzlement scheme came out) -- but I would guess it happens more often in the East.
Comment: #26
Posted by: Lisa
Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:26 PM
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LW1--"They were rowdy and crude, and they screamed a lot." This type of fan should be expected at any sporting event, especially those where alcohol is served. You were smart to urge your aunt to allow you to pay for better seats as drunken crudeness tends to decrease as the price of the ticket increases. Nevertheless, there's not a lot you can do to prevent this sort of rude behavior by fellow sports fans. It's not as though you can walk over and muzzle the louts as tempting as that may be. Taking time to locate security and point out offenders is time spent away from the action and therefore hurts you more than it does the rowdy drunks. Take this ugly incident as a lesson to insist on purchasing better seats in the future. Even with good seats, though I wouldn't expect common courtesy to prevail.
LW2--I agree with Margo that the suicide ethic of ancient Japan never happen in this day and age and for all the reasons she stated. People today refuse to take personal responsibility for their actions and so why would they take their own lives after their actions cause colossal harm to others?
Comment: #27
Posted by: Chris
Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:38 PM
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Chris,
Did you miss the part of threatening to throw a small child over the glass for wearing the other team's jersey. That is a threat. It should have been reported. Rowdy, crude and obnoxious are one thing, threatening people is another and especially a child. What the h*ll is wrong with people?
Comment: #28
Posted by: Stacia
Fri Jan 20, 2012 5:04 PM
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@Stacia
Personally I wouldn't have considered the drunken chides of a college sports fan at a game as a serious threat. I think people today take these sorts of absurd missives literally and then overreact. The other day, a child was loudly throwing a tantrum in the grocery and I mentioned to my friend that if the child didn't stop its high-pitched screeching I was going to waltz over there and strangle it. OBVIOUSLY I wasn't serious and a woman standing behind me in line with two kids of her own even chuckled and agreed. If she were you, she apparently would have gasped, pulled out her cell phone and called the police on me for threatening to kill a child. While I didn't witness what the LW did, I don't recall reading anything in the news about a child being hurled over the glass wall at a hockey game either so obviously the threat wasn't a serious one.
Comment: #29
Posted by: Chris
Fri Jan 20, 2012 5:59 PM
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Nanchan (post #1). I agree that Letter 2 was a bit odd. As for your offense toward Japanese stereotypes, the letter writer was only referencing Ancient Japan, not modern Japan. With that, I think it changes his question from one of stereotype to one of history applied to the present. Also, he was only wondering. I do, however, wonder why that letter was chosen out of all the others possible? Hmmm....
Comment: #30
Posted by: Katie
Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:40 PM
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Re: Katie
Point taken... I get a little tired of hearing about this stuff though as if the Japanese are still living the same way they did hundreds of years ago. It comes up periodically when people talk to me about Japan, guess I overreacted :).
That said, I hardly think Dear Margo is the place to start this philophical debate like this.
Comment: #31
Posted by: nanchan
Fri Jan 20, 2012 7:30 PM
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Re: Janie
Well, Canadian fans may not be quite as rowdy as "old country" soccer hooligans, but... we did have a few Stanley Cup riots in Canada, not to mention the infamous Maurice "Rocket" Richard riots in 1955, which lasted more than a day...
@Stacia
In defense of Chris, I can tell you that you will hear one those threats every minute in the cheap part of any stadium - especially if the game is tight and the stakes are high. If the cops had to be called to cover every one of them, there would be no one left to police the rest of the city.
@Chris
"This type of fan should be expected at any sporting event, especially those where alcohol is served."
Is THAT why beer is so stale at baseball venues? ;-)
Comment: #32
Posted by: Lise Brouillette
Sat Jan 21, 2012 10:59 AM
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Thank you to those who know that it is hara-kiri (literally cutting the belly), although in Japan the term used is usually seppuku. I just had some university students here in Japan who did a presentation comparing the US and Japan. (They chose the topic; there is an entire school of "academic" study called "nihonjinron" that consists of comparing Japanese with someone else, the "other") These students' "data"? A couple of "jokes"...What is the difference in behaviour between a Japanese customer with a fly in his soup, and an American? Answer: The Japanese person will check to see if everyone has a fly in their soup, and then quietly leave the soup; the American will complain to the management. (The American's behaviour is considered the odd behaviour in this context.) The second joke: What is the difference between the behaviour of Japanese and Americans in the case of a shipwreck? The Japanese will jump into the sea, and the Americans will jump into the sea after someone tells them that jumping will make them a hero. The students' conclusion as written in their paper? Based on this "research" which is actually taken from a book available in Japan, "Japanese people are tender and kind, and connect with others around them; bashful and kindhearted. The Americans often complain and want to catch the spotlight." The point of this posting: Generalizations are extremely dangerous, even when based on research and experience. To those, like my students, who generalize without any accurate information....Well, I don't suppose I should really use such language in a public forum.
Comment: #33
Posted by: betty boop
Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:51 PM
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Your response to Cringing In Colorado regarding the game of ice hockey and its fans, to insult that a highly physical game goes hand-in-hand with drunken, loutish behavior, was childish and insulting. There are boorish fans at every sporting event, everywhere. To suggest that ice hockey fans are expected to be drunk and crude is narrow-minded and disrespectful to the innumerable fans of the sport who do not, in fact, display public drunkenness, myself included.
Comment: #34
Posted by: Rachel
Tue Jan 24, 2012 2:01 PM
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I disagree with the advice to stay away from the cheap seats at a hockey game if you dont like the drunks. Instead, security needs to be held accountable for tolerating this kind of behavior rather than accepting it as the norm, that guys will be guys. Throw the bums out or they will have permission to behave badly with no consequences. A lot of people can only afford the cheap seats, like the family with a child who settled in nearby. They should be able to enjoy a game. As for one of the "guys" saying something about throwing the young boy wearing the opposing team's jersey over the wall to seats below: I hate to tell him this, but a threat constitutes verbal assault, especially when it is directed at someone who cannot defend themselves. It's not funny.
Comment: #35
Posted by: Kathleen
Tue Jan 24, 2012 5:31 PM
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Dear Margo:
May I respectfully suggest that you should have attended more than one NHL game before affixing the 'anathema' label to this great sport. Yes, it's violent (have you attended any baseball, basketball or football games lately) but it's also a sport of great dignity and grace. Boorish behavior is not restricted to hockey. Unfortunately, it's a part of every professional sport as well as many college and high school contests.
I've never been to a Chicago Blackhawks game, but I can tell you that as an 'original six' team in the NHL they have a long and distinguished history and neither they nor the sport of hockey deserve to be judged on the basis of attendance at one game or the drunken behavior of a few misguided jerks who should have stayed home.
Reverend Jim
Boston, MA
Comment: #36
Posted by: Jim Little
Wed Jan 25, 2012 5:10 AM
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LW1:
Let me start out on a couple of things, I have NFL and NHL season tickets, I also attend a boatload of baseball games (yes, I am a sports nut).
Simply put, the "cheap seats" at any sporting event are going to have more drunks and "brutes", its a given. I use to hate dealing with them, and just kept upgrading my seats (and now I have damn good seats), the atmosphere is very different the closer you get to the field/ice.
Part of it is cost, simply put, people that spend a lot of money for great seats, are not going to be as tolerant of "boorish" behavior, and security has a much tighter leash, i.e. they kick you out a hell of a lot faster. Over in the "cheap seats", security tends to run looser and the getting kicked out of a game isn't much of a big loss to lots of those folks (who consider themselves "real fans"). A lot of those tickets are "one off" tix meaning, you can buy them on game day or whenever, while those close to the field are almost always exclusive season tickets, and the fans there are a bit more worried that those season rights can get stripped.
Advise, in any sporting event, try and get the best seats you can afford, and also, write to the team complaining about security, teams are starting to finally crack down on garbage behavior in the stadiums and arenas.
Comment: #37
Posted by: Mookster
Tue Jan 31, 2012 1:17 AM
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