The many and the loud: examining Toronto sports fans
By Ben Forrest Friday March 28, 2008
The human inability to tolerate incompetence knows no bounds. I should know: I am a reporter, an academic, and a newspaper columnist. Holding other people to standards I could never reach myself occupies at least 85 per cent of my time.
Suffice it to say, I have a very difficult time understanding Toronto sports fans who insist on supporting the hometown team. (Although when it comes to basketball, I am one of them). No other city on the continent so regularly (and enthusiastically) rewards mediocrity, and no other fans on earth so willingly invest in franchises whose main selling point is nostalgia and half-hearted promises to get better.
Toronto sports fans do not really want success. They want the appearance of working toward success. It is all they really ask for, all they really need.
The Maple Leafs are of course the most famous example. A full generation has reached middle age without seeing the Laughs hoist the Stanley Cup.
Mankind has walked on the moon in the interim, conquered Everest countless times, and wondered routinely what was once so special about running a mile in under four minutes. The tagline of a popular shoe company has been proven repeatedly: impossible is nothing.
Yet the Leafs treat success as though it were calculus or a Rubik's Cube. They continue to flounder, and worry little about the future. Fans fill the Air Canada Centre nightly, and make do with what they are given. For wont of a better option, players like Wendel Clark and Tie Domi are not just embraced: they become minor legends.
The Blue Jays have not been supported so loyally, but the team has few reasons to worry about its bottom line. Rarely are all 46,105 seats in Rogers Centre full, but crowds of respectable size can be expected for most games. This is mainly because the Jays won two World Series in the early 1990s and have remained moderately competitive ever since.
Each year they spend enough money to fare acceptably in the standings but not enough to make the playoffs. The Toronto fan, because he is a breed apart, sighs resignedly and waves his foam finger with only slightly less gusto.
Much the same is true of the Raptors, who have been selling little more than potential since their inception in 1995 and boast some of the most daft and loyal fans in the National Basketball Association. (As stated, I am one of them).
The sad thing is, we are enthusiastic to a fault. The Dinos' erratic home-court play during last year's playoffs can be attributed partially to the cacophony created by the fans, most of whom sincerely believed they were helping.
Rumours that the Buffalo Bills may move to Ontario's capital do not surprise, for doing so would be something similar to earning the right to print money. In sports other than hockey, a Toronto team inevitably becomes "Canada's Team," and Canadians rarely fail to support their own.
Nothing about the Toronto sports fan can be explained in rational terms, for Toronto is a town that runs on faith. There is something frustrating about it, but also something affecting.
Toronto marches to the beat of a very different drum, but "different" is not always bad. There are times when I sincerely wish the rest of the sporting world would fall in line.
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