PowerPlayGoal.com – Hockey From A Different Angle

Welcome to the definitive fan. The PowerPlayGoal.com guide to the types of fans your likely to encounter at a Hockey game, whether you like it, or not.
Some of these fans have a true passion for the sport, others are just there because they like have nothing better to do.

Fan Type #12 – Uninterested Children

Often, they really shouldn’t be there

Bio:
Forced to go along to a game because their parents cannot be bothered to hire a babysitter, or because they feel that their child needs to be immersed in everything they do – else its not right, Uninterested Children distract other fans around them because they would much rather be outside with friends, or playing Lego.
They have little understanding of the game, and will often just shout what they know from other sports; for example at a recent game, one child a few rows back spent much of the game shouting that players should be “sent off” and that they should get a “yellow card”. For those of you not in the know, they are both popular terms for Soccer Fans.
They then, still bored and confused resort to kick the seat in front to them for a period of time – a quick glare back normally stops this, for a few minutes and the kicking will then resume.
They then spend time wandering around and in particular seem to go out of their way to make sure that they invade as much of your personal space as possible.
By the time that the 2nd period has ended they are climbing on the seats around shouting to their mum that they are bored, and spilling a jumbo sized Pepsi down your back.

Characteristics:
Over dressed in fan gear, as the parents keep buying it for them.

Favourite Team:
Whatever team their parents support.

Other:
Most of this type of fan will gradually disapear as they become a disillusioned teenager.

Favourite Phrases:
Send them off ref!
I wanna see a fight.
When’s the period end?
He’s not allowed to catch the puck. Handball!

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

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 hockey game.
Most of these fans enjoy everything about the game, while a small few only seem to be interested in a particular person on the ice…

Fan Type #10 – The Player Fan

We all have our favourite player(s), but this fan type takes it to a slightly different extreme

Bio:
Not necessarily a ‘bad’ fan by any means, unlike most of the fan types we have previously covered. As the name suggests, the Player Fan generally seems to be more interested in a particular player than anything else when it comes to their chosen team – whether they have been actively following the player since his junior league days or said player caught the fan’s attention at their first hockey game are among various reasons why the fan develops their liking of said player.

This fan type is, again unlike many we have covered before, usually quite knowledgeable about the game of Hockey, and generally even more so about their favourite player’s career and position, so they will provide good conversation should you happen to come across them.

It’s not as easy to identify a Player Fan in real life as it is on the internet: you will know instantly whether a member of a team’s forum is of this fan type if they have the player’s photo in their avatar and/or signature, or they will have a username which will usually be something like, for example, “Selanne8” or “ModanoFan”. As previously mentioned, they will still provide good conversation even when online, but whether the fan is generally biased towards their favourite player or is capable of being critical will depend on their personality.

Sometimes, the Player Fan will take part in the sport themselves, usually taking up the same position and modelling their play style after the player they idolise – some of these kinds of players are likely in the NHL today.

Characteristics:
No distinguishable characteristics – they seem to blend in. However, they may be seen around or at games in a custom jersey with their favourite player’s name and number on. As for internet forums, the dead giveaways have already been mentioned above.

Favourite Team:
Generally depends on which team their favourite player is on. Player Fans have had this writer asking himself the question of what they do once the player retires for whatever reason, or where their loyalty lies when he is traded to another team. Chances are they may still like the team he previously played for, while still following the player on his new team.

Other:
Due in part to the NHL overhyping certain players, an extremely annoying variant of the Player Fan also exists, which we will cover another time. In keeping with the current times, we shall refer to this other fan type as the dreaded Crosby Fanboy.

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

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 hockey game.
Most of these fans truly love the game, and some just have a passing interest, while others seemingly exist only to annoy others…

Fan Type #9 – The Forum Troll

Not quite what we had in mind, but… yeah

Bio:
Some people really do have a lot of time on their hands. This pathetic excuse of a fan may hate any particular team so much that they will go right out of their way to infuriate the fans of said team via a certain means on the internet, which as this fan type’s name suggests is a forum – particularly an unofficial, fan-made one for a certain team.

They will register an account, usually going with a name like “A REAL hockey fan” or “*insert team name here* suck”, and once logged in they will look for a section of the board, the one that attracts the most attention, namely discussions related to the team in question. They’ll then start a thread, filling their post with ludicrous “facts” as to why the team is a joke, why they shouldn’t exist, why their fans are all fake, why the team will be folding soon, etc., and if they are intelligent enough to make up a scenario of their own, they will claim that they’ve been to one of the team’s home games, pointing out things that are apparently wrong with the team and arena like the “fake fans” in attendance, and eventually they will finish their post. As with most typical forum trolls, they will log off and never return to their account again.

But the Forum Troll doesn’t stop there: they will sit and watch as people reply with angry or sarcastic comments, and posts saying “Please don’t feed the troll”. Forum Complainers will respond with whining about how it’s all true, regardless of how stupid and illogical the original post is. The thread will either go on for a while before it fades away in favour of other, more relevant threads related to the hockey team, or an admin will lock and/or remove it straightaway – the latter is likely to, ironically, annoy the troll, whose account will be banned and IP address blocked.

Characteristics:
How are we supposed to know what they look like behind the keyboard? They are more than likely to be male. As their name suggests they could have hideous faces and pointy ears, but we don’t know for sure…

Favourite Team:
In this case it should be their Favourite Team To Pick On. They are more likely to antagonise fans of the expansion era Sunbelt NHL franchises.

Other:
Admins usually manage to identify their IP addresses as being either from the more Northern States or from Canada. Go figure.

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

(Credit to this guy for the photo)