Hey, what is the best part of travelling Is it the annoying lines to get your car to the terminal? Is it the annoying lines to check in? How about the annoying lines at the security check, coincidentally one of the few public places where you can hear people yelling “Sir, take your belt off”. Maybe it is the awesome prices they have at all of their shops ($9 for a turkey sandwich on a piece of toast – yeah, because that seems reasonable). Or perhaps it’s how the airline always manages to delay your flight because they know you want to buy another turkey sandwich (conspiracy). Or is it all of the babies that are crying around you at 5:45 AM as you try desperately to snooze. Certainly it could be the person sitting on the plane next to you whose “personal side bits” are intruding on to your seat causing awkward battle for elbow space. Oh, and the crying babies – did I mention that already? But I digress, I am tired and really am just whining.
The best part about flying is how you can spend 2 hours in a more or less comfortable chair while flying thousands feet in the air to land somewhere much farther away from the place you…oh, god damn it can we stop “taxiing” already and take off? Bloody hell.
Frustrations are a common feeling among air travellers and commuters – period. It seems we may have too many people living on the little rock floating in space. So while my frustrations are associated with some minor grievances between me and the world due to the regular “first world” problems, I sort of wanted to link it to hockey and try to find what the hell “grinds my gears” when it comes to the game that I love so much.
Straight up, we as a collective hockey fan community have spent the past eight months in a constant frustration mode. It was like being constipated…you could deal with it, but no matter what you tried to do it felt completely uncomfortable. The lockout drove hundreds, thousands, millions of us into the Grinch mode, many swearing they would not spend one dollar when the NHL comes back. So now that we all bought tickets and NHL Center Ice packages, we can all agree that we have the will power of a firefly who just witness a buzz lamp and is flying to his inevitable doom – we are suckers. This is okay, comrades, but god damn, it is frustrating to see some of the NHL teams take the route to Suck-ville with their ticket prices. How can any franchise in their right mind increase the prices of the cheap seats right after the damn lockout? Why you do this?
Do you hate your fans that much?
The worst part about this is that the hike is happening on the “cheap seats”, the nose bleeds, the place where the loyal mob sits. The upper bleachers is the section to find your biggest fans, the drunk guys, and that dancing Larry from the Madison Square Garden. It is the Mecca of the passionate and adoring fans who go wielding proudly their teams’ flags on their chests. This is not the section for the corporate dates and fuss outings, these seats are reserved for the best fans a franchise can have. This is why it is frustrating as all hell. I can’t fathom how some of these franchise big wigs can issue “sorry” statements, wait for the fans to turn around and stab them right in the back.
How long can babies cry? No, seriously? I literally never wanted to kick a baby harder before in my life (no offense to the lovely family in the seats in front of me – sorry for that little “bump on the back of your chair. Strictly accidental). By the way, I get the irony of my admitting to whine, then rant, only to follow that up with being upset that babies whine. My bad.
While I am taking advantage of the seriously under-equipped cart bar that a stewardess is driving around, the owners are doing the same thing to the fans. Eight months of no sport you care about and spend your hard earn rubles on, well now you need to pay more. It must be easy to make money when you know your fans really do not have a choice, so you hastily pull their pants down and insert gently.
But hey, not all teams are bad guys. Tampa Bay is doing the right thing with an amazing offer of 200 dollars for terrace level season tickets (the unforeseen side affect of this offer caused an influx of Canadian immigrants and unfortunate rise in suicide in Toronto), the Detroit Red Wings are also offering 9 dollar tickets and waiving fees, Florida Panthers season tickets start at 7 dollars per game with free parking and a jersey, The Columbus Blue Jackets are selling opening game night versus the Red Wings with a buy one get one free sale, and the Carolina Hurricanes are doing 50 percent off on opening night tickets. So you do sense that some teams get it. They get that their fans are their lifeline to success and giving back a little sometimes goes a long way. There is also the fact that three out of the four teams listed above are not exactly beating fans away with brooms…that’s beside the point.
So, while my flight is ending and really has turned out to be not so bad, after a few Bloody Marys (Caesar’s, for my Canadian friends), I think that my outlook towards some teams can be viewed as passionate and reactionary. I am sure the execs have some sort of an excuse and reason behind this madness, but I cant help and feel for the fans of the teams that are raising prices. I think all hockey fans are awesome, passionate people (except all the idiots who are neither awesome, nor passionate). We are as die hard, if not moreso, than any other sports fans (especially in America where we are reminded constantly where hockey stands with “hockey is boring” or “figure skating with fighting” remarks) but we endure this because we love this game and sometimes we deserve to be treated with a bit more respect.
See you in the nose bleeds….and that is the last word.
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photo credit: chrisoakley via photopin cc
