PowerPlayGoal.com – Hockey From A Different Angle

Welcome to The Definitive Fan – The online guide from PowerPlayGoal.com to the types of fans who you’re likely to meet (or not meet) at a game.
Some of these fans clearly have a true passion for the game, others, well, they are just there for something to do.

Fan Type #15 – The Critical Blogger

Bio:

A computer desk, littered with Mars Bar wrappers, the remains of a kitkat, a plate with chicken bones on it, and a coffee cup with a single drip of coffee stained down the side of it.
A windows computer sitting, on the desk buzzing. An internet browser with several pages loaded and solitaire sitting in the background, hidden beneath the browser; forgotten like much of the disk.
This is the home to the blogger, “journalist” of the internet, spreading their views on anything and everything; be it Locally Produced Food to The evils of apple computers.
However, this blogger likes to complain about hockey.
Doesn’t matter whether its Gary Bettman creating a new franchise in Winnipeg or the Montreal Canadians winning the Stanley cup, they are online ranting about it within 15 minutes of it being announced.
Their list of “loyal” followers, often from similar themed blogs post comments on how much they agree with what’s written; whilst those from the outside who dare to say they don’t agree are quietly ushered away to a room out the back and beaten with a hockey stick.

Characteristics:
Years ago, the typical nerd description would suffice; but with the “web 2.0″ evolution being upon us now; its a lot harder to say what sort of person is a hardcore critical blogger.
I would like to imagine personally, someone aged 30-45, bald or balding and they like to wear a white vest; with stains.
Potential smoker.

Favourite Team:
So long as it isn’t an “evil” sunbelt team

Other:
They often like to fill their spare time by causing trouble on forums; starting pathetic facebook groups or going to games where they sit and moan all the time.

=== Disclaimer ===

In addition to this post; I would like to state that this only applies to Critical Bloggers; those who do nothing but moan – and this doesn’t apply to all hockey blogs; some of which we are quite big fans of here on PowerPlayGoal.com

Welcome to The Definitive Fan – The online guide from PowerPlayGoal.com to the types of fans who you’re likely to meet (or not meet) at a game.
Some of these fans clearly have a true passion for the game, others, well, they are just there for something to do.

Fan Type #14 – The Film Fan

Bio:
The film fan has just seen a film at the cinema or on TV that featured hockey. Now it may have been a re run of The Mighty Ducks, a bootleg copy of Slapshot 3 (lets face it, no one is buying that film) or worse still; they just saw Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) in childrens “hit” comedy The Tooth Fairy.
Suddenly, they claim to love hockey. They think to know what its all about, even support a team- usually one that doesn’t play hockey; confusing either baseball, football or basketball team names for a hockey one; or in some circumstances, will claim to support the Mighty Ducks, not realising that they have since changed their name.
They even begged mum to take them to see a game, which they went to; the mum spent the entire time chatting on the phone, whilst the kid eats tonnes of sugary food and then spends the entire game getting in the way of people who actually want to watch the game.
In some cases, they even try playing hockey; then give up realising that its not so easy to play and that the movie lied to them epically about what real hockey is actually like.

Characteristics:
Often young kids, running through to 18 year old males. They will see a poster/standee/advert featuring hockey and shout/say/scream “ahhh coool”.

Favourite Team:
Miami Dolphins, New York Mets, LA Clippers, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim

Other:
Eat too much sugar, laugh at fart jokes, and think that hockey is made up of angry people who like to fight; and they have no real interest in any sport(though this again varies)

I’m KevKev, and this is PowerPlayGoal.com

Welcome to the Definitive Fan – The online guide from PowerPlayGoal.com to the types of fans who you’re likely to meet (or not meet) at a game.
Some of these fans have a true passion for the game, and will proudly support their chosen team through and through. Other folks, on the other hand…

Fan Type #13 – The Bandwagoner

Look at this lovely wagon, conveniantly available to hop on when that other one is breaking.

Bio:
Often confused with the Fair Weather Fan. As the name suggests, the Bandwagoner has a tendency to hop on a particular team’s bandwagon, as in, conveniently become part of said team’s fan base when they happen to be winning.

They’ll continue to go and watch games for as long as their team is constantly doing well: they’ll then buy merchandise, such as a pennant, talk about the team, and hockey in general, with their friends and (temporary) fellow fans all while making themselves sound like they know everything about this team… but the very moment something bad happens, like the team suddenly losing its playoff spot in the standings, they will suddenly be overcome with a feeling of disappointment. Generally, sports fans do feel unhappy when their favourites have just lost a game (or their playoff spot), especially the passionate fans of said team, but they never go as far as to follow another one instead.

Usually, no matter what the team is going through or how bad they are doing, the more passionate hockey fans will still continue to attend and watch games to support them. As for the Bandwagoners however, while the team continues to struggle during a losing streak, they’ll conveniently change their allegiance to a different team instead, one that just happens to be winning (especially common if there are multiple teams within an area), usually being part of a crowd in doing so. But then suddenly, this team has a bad spell near the end of the season while their previous favourites have made a big, final push to clinch a playoff spot: guess what this fan does next.

Characteristics:
No distinguishable characteristics, they seem to blend in.

Favourite Team:
Guess.

Other:
This fan type tends to be more noticeable during the postseason. Sometimes you’ll find that even the most loyal fans of a team that have missed the playoffs still need their hockey fix, and will root for a particular team that they want to win: fans like this could be classed as Bandwagoner Type B.

I’m Wildwing64, and this is the Definitive Fan.